


Heartbeat

by SmexyWatermelon



Series: Mad Like Us [2]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hill is a lunatic little shit, Temporary Amnesia, Wendigo!Josh, gonna throw in the others as soon as reader becomes mentally stable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7327600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmexyWatermelon/pseuds/SmexyWatermelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have woken up in a hospital cell: people want to know what happened in the caves, but amnesia has swept away all your memories. Will you be able to save Josh again?</p><p>-----<br/>Quick 'previously on this cheesy fic': Mike had kinda a crush on you, you have ravaged a first aid kit and the stranger gave you a luck trinket 'against evil spirits'. That's it, enjoy!<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awakening

7:36 – 72 days after dawn

Everything… hurts. You feel like you haven’t moved in forever: the first thing you are able to feel again are your fingers, trembling lightly as you force yourself out of sleep; your brain is the part of your body that’s aching the most right now, feeling like someone had just stabbed the middle of your forehead with a knife.

You take in a deep breath as you slowly open your eyes: the room was painted in a blinding white, the spotless ceiling the only thing you could see from your position.  
You look around yourself, and realize you were laying on a comfortable, padded floor: you try to sit up, but your arms don’t move; you look down and discover your whole body was covered by a straitjacket; it was not the first one you had ever seen, but it was odd wearing one yourself. You slowly crawl into a sitting position and lean your back on the wall, your breath quickly accelerating.

‘Where am I?’

You look again around yourself with wide eyes, but it’s all the same, all white, all padded, smelling with a horrible stench of disinfectant that was burning your nostrils with every breath you took.

‘What the hell is going on?!?’

You look down on yourself, but all you can see are large white clothes covering your body – too large for your meager form. The only things exposed were your feet, and from their skinny look you could tell you were malnourished.

You catch your breath as something flashes in the back of your mind – pure hunger, starvation, horrible thoughts that had tried to take over you slowly, whispering things in your ears, trying to force you to act on that single and terrifying command: _Eat_.

You shut your eyes and lean back against the wall, taking quick and irregular breaths.

You feel a tear slowly tracing the profile of your nose as you calm down, forcing yourself to think, even if it hurt like hell every time you tried.

Your locks are covering your face, and you slowly come to realize they weren’t that long the last time you could remember.

You look up and spot a door, white as everything else in the room: after some attempts you manage to stand up and get closer to it, inspecting your surroundings as well; it was the only way in and out, but alas there was no doorknob to turn. “Hey!” you try to yell, but the words come out as a raspy whisper and get easily stuck in the back of your throat. You try to lower your head and massage your neck but the straitjacket was restraining your every movement.

You clear your throat and speak again: the result is not as disappointing as the first, but it could still get better.

After some minutes and various attempts, you finally manage to shout at anyone that could have been beyond that door, kicking it as well to gain some attention.

Hearing no answer, you turn around and start pacing in a little circle around the room: you knew it had been long since the last time you could remember. But how long? And most importantly, _what was_ the last time you could remember?

You stop and look up: as you think, flashes of teeth and claws pass in front of your eyes; you remember feeling breathless, hopeless, broken. Weeping in the dark as the voices tried to take over you. You clench your teeth, almost seeing yourself crouched on the ground, just a name repeated over and over on your lips.

The door clanks open and you snap around, trembling. Two men wearing grey overalls were standing just outside of the room: they looked quite bulky but they had a somewhat calm expression on their faces; it made you think they didn’t want to hurt you, so you try to speak.

“W-where is Josh?”

They exchange a look with each other, without muttering a word. The ginger one turns to you and opens his mouth to speak, but the other man stops him.

“We should wait for the doctress to come.”

Ginger turns to him with crooked eyebrows.

“She just wants to know-“ “She has done that before.” You scan the two of them down, realizing the one antagonizing you had a bandaged arm. “She’s a biter; wouldn’t want her to eat another piece of me.” He mocks you; you open your mouth to counter him, but stop immediately: there was no use in angering your captors. Beside, even if you were sure you didn’t know them, you didn’t remember anything at all: you might have bitten him, somehow, even if you couldn’t really think of any situation that would have made you injure someone this badly with just a bite.

You look up at them one more time and see them greet and make room for another person; the aforementioned doctress steps in front of you, the two men at her sides as they approach you while you unconsciously take a step back. “Be careful. She might snap at any moment.” The doctress tilts her head slightly towards the man, without breaking eye contact with you “I don’t think so. Not this time at least.”

Before you can even ask something, she grips your face and lowers you to her eye level, flashing a little torch in front of your eyes. “Careful!” you hear the men say as you squint. You finally yank your head free from her grip and take another step back defensively.

“I’m no fair pet, ma’am.” You manage to hiss, your voice seems to have faded in that horrible rasp one more time.

She just smiles at you and then turns back to the other men “See? No pupils dilated, no more growls nor unreasonable ramblings. I dare say she’s back!”

“Excuse me?”

The doctress faces you again and slowly puts a hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly. “You have been here for over a month, dear. Don’t you remember?”

You slowly shake your head, your headache worsening as you try to remember.

You hear her make a disgruntled noise and then mumble to the others:

“Get the psychiatrist here. He’ll want to know.”

8:48

They had made you sit in another room: it had less light and was painted in a horrible blue-grayish color, but you were happy to have some furniture back. You were sitting in front of a table, another chair at the other side. A couple of plants were positioned in the corners of the room, completely failing at making the room look better.

The two men hadn’t trusted you to keep behaving without your straitjacket, but Ginger had a strange pitiful look on his face while his colleague closed the door shut in front of you;

You are looking down at the desk, examining the little dots covering the surface and a miniature crack spreading on one of the corners, your bare feet brushing playfully against the old moquette, when you hear the door opening again: and there Ginger is, with a little smile on his face and a cup of something in his hand.

“Hello again.” He says cheerily, while you just look at him, kinda lost.

He gets near you and kneels down to your eye level, leaving the cup in front of you. “I thought you might use some hot chocolate.” He says while ripping the paper envelope of a straw. “Chocolate..?” you mutter while turning your gaze to the steamy cup in front of you. “Yeah. I hope you like it. Even though I have never met someone who willingly refused a cup of it.” He plunges the straw in it and waits for you to sip it, but you keep staring at it.

“Wait, you really don’t like it?” he asks in a mortified tone. You lightly shake your head, a frown on your face. “I don’t know.”

You blink a couple of times in front of it: you couldn’t remember anything, not even your name. How were you supposed to remember about drinks?

“Why don’t you try it?” you make an attempt to shrug and take the straw in between your lips, sucking cautiously: it did taste good, even if a little artificial. You close your eyes and smile, licking your lips “Sweet.” You open your eyes again “Tastes like hugs.” He chuckles at your comment and pats you on the back, when the door opens one more time: a dark haired man enters the room, a strict expression on his face.

“Mornin’ Doctor.” Ginger says while sitting up. The newcomer stares at him while he walks around the table to reach the door. “Tyler.”

When the door closes again, it’s just the two of you: he looks down at you with a wicked smile playing on his lips; you gulp lightly, not knowing whether you were supposed to tell him something. After a couple of seconds you just decide to keep drinking your chocolate while staring at him, waiting for his next move.

He looks down and grins widely, closing his eyes; he then sits in the chair in front of you, opening a little notebook and taking the cap off the pen.

“I have been told you have woken up today in a better mood; and with a particular lack of memory.” He pauses, expecting for a reply that you did not give.

“And words” he adds with a stern tone “as I can see.”

He looks down at his notebook and writes something down before turning his gaze back to you.

“What is the last thing you remember?”

You let go of the straw and lick your lips, taking your time. You sniff and gulp again, trying not to make the flashes from before take over you.

“Teeth. Claws.” You look at one of the spots on the table, focusing your attention on it. “Darkness. Cold.” He keeps scribbling something down when you remember one more thing, that makes you catch your breath. You look up to him. “Where’s Josh?”

He finishes writing and drops the pen, putting his hands on the table and straightening up. “He’s safe, in this building. He’s doing fine.”

You try to nod, but you feel like you haven’t got the force to do it.

“Don’t you remember anything else about this… claws?” you take a moment to think, then subtly shake your head. “It’s all confused.” You whimper.

“It’s ok. It’s perfectly normal for people in your state.” You take another sip of the chocolate, still staring at the table.

“Do you know where you are?”

You shake your head again, biting at the straw. “What year are we in?” you again just shake your head, numbness not even making you realize there were tears at the edges of your eyes. “What’s your name?” your teeth prick the straw as you put more force into your bite.

“I want to see Josh.” You manage to mumble.

“You’ll be able to meet him later, don’t worry about it right now.”

He keeps scribbling, stealing a glance at you from time to time. Examining you. You didn’t know what he was looking for, or expecting. You didn’t even remember how you had come here.

“I think it’s enough for one day.” He says with an affable smile plastered on his face.

He stands up and turns around, opening the door to leave. You realize you didn’t even know his name- “Wait!” he stops and looks back at you “Who are you?” you ask, blinking your eyes innocently. That evil grin from before comes back to his face. “You can call me Alan.” He looks at you for some other seconds but, since you kept staring at him blankly, he just walked out of the room.

9:32

The two men from before had come back to bring you into your room: Ginger had greeted you with a little smile and had helped you stand up while Jerk was just being… a jerk, actually.

You had been walking between the two of them down the corridor when something echoed through it: it was like a shriek, a high pitched whistle, but not just that; it was something more, something that called for a distant thing buried deep inside of you. “Josh.” You whisper, feeling your hands clenching inside your straitjacket. 

Ginger immediately grabs you from behind and lifts your feet above the ground, but you contemporary headbutt him and aim your heel at his crotch, leaving him painfully bent on the ground.

You run towards the source of the noise, the screeching increasing in intensity as you approach the room: you are able to turn around the corner when something yanks you back, making you fall on the ground. You try to kick at the ground and get back on your feet but a strong arm winds around your throat and you feel a stinging pain at the base of your neck; your vision blurs as you hear the screeches turn into feral growls and banging. You clench your teeth together, something voracious speaking from the back of your mind: you were so close. Too close. You wouldn’t surrender now.

Your vision focuses again and you wiggle enough to make your chin get near the man’s arm: your teeth easily plunge into his skin and the grip around your neck loosens as you rip the flesh away. You fall forward on the floor and stand up again, spitting skin and blood out of your mouth, but as soon as you’re back on your feet the man yanks your back one more time, making you turn towards him: you barely see his fist hitting you, feeling like a train had just decided to run over your right cheek.

You trip on the floor and fall on your belly, your brain registering one last horrible growl before definitely blacking out.


	2. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, people apparently refer to ChrisxAshley as Crashley. No doubt Chris and Josh have a better couple name, whatever it is.

\-----------------------------------

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Cold, darkness.  
Nothing but drops: silence is filling the caves.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

You didn’t know whether it was water or blood at this point. Even the voices didn’t care anymore.  
The only thing that mattered was survive another night.

You flinch when you hear heavy footsteps coming from just outside the door. You catch your breath, your arms winding your legs tighter to your chest.

You hear clatter as something tries to turn the doorknob; your trembling ceases when your hear a long and high pitched whistle coming from outside: so far, only one wendigo had learnt to do that.

You stand up, your weak legs wobbling underneath your weight “J-josh?” you murmur as you approach the door, fumbling in darkness. You hear a whimper coming from the outside and unlock the door, opening it slowly.

He was laying on the ground, deep gashes staining his clothes with blood; he looks at you and whines again, his eyes looking for yours.

Normally, he would spend the night away from you, in case the wendigo took over him. But this was an emergency: if you didn’t help him and left him outside and wounded, the wendigo who had started this could have come back to finish him.

You crouch at his side and carefully put one of his arms around your shoulders, lifting him up: he limped beside you inside the hollow of the cave while a continuous flow of soothing words fled from your mouth.

You make him sit in the middle of the lighter part of the cave, where moonlight could help you tend to his wounds. You shakily grab the crooked needle you had snatched from the first aid kit so long ago and try to make the string pass into its eye, your hands trembling way too much to accomplish such a precise task.

You need well more than one attempt, but you finally manage to do it and turn back to Josh, who in the meantime had licked clean one of the wounds on his arm. You tenderly caress his shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine.” You tell him as he just looks at you: you would have probably called that ‘puppy face’ if it wasn’t for the double set of razor sharp teeth.

You quietly stitch the gash on his belly, interrupting from time to time when you heard him growl in pain.  
When you finish, you bite the remaining string away and place a soft kiss on his wound. “Better?” you ask, smiling at him. He pulls you in a tight hug and you lean your head on his, slowly closing your eyes. “I wish you could stay even at night. I feel so lonely without you.” He emits a little growl, his chest vibrating against yours.

You loosen your grip to look at him and Josh quickly pecks your lips – literally, pecking them: since he had no more lips his ‘kisses’ had turned to him gently grazing his teeth against you. You smile at him and rest your head on his chest, feeling his heart slowly thumping, reminding you he was still the old Josh Washington that you knew. That you saved. That you loved.

You have barely the time to inspect another wound before you hear a clatter of something against the rocks, coming right behind you: you turn around and spot an inhuman shadow, crouched and steadily pacing towards you.

Another wendigo, for sure. The moonlight flashes into its pale dead eyes as it growls at you;  
It suddenly jumps, and you’re barely able to scream Josh’s name, before waking up.

\-----------------------------------

18:34

You take in sharp breaths, calming your trembling limbs: you’re in the white room again, laying on the pavement once more. You blink the tears away and try to normalize your breathing, cold sweat covering your body and worsening your shivers;  
Just when you’ve calmed down you finally manage to feel the pain radiating from your cheek: you could barely move your jaw without hurting yourself and you probably had a couple of loose teeth too.

You get back into a sitting position again, sniffing loudly. You recall biting one of the guards. You even remember hearing Josh’s pleas, but still you didn’t know what had taken over you to make you behave like that. You couldn’t have a wendigo roaming in your head, you were sure of that.  
_Almost_ sure of that.

After all, it was difficult to say what was going on in your mind: your depression had taken over you sometimes in the past. The fact that something else was now replacing it didn’t make you feel any better.

You snap back from your thoughts when you hear someone opening the door of your cell. You quickly crawl to the most distant corner of the room, just like you had done for months in the cave. When you look up you relax a little bit, another gentle smile welcoming you.

“G-ginger? What are you doing here?” You manage to stutter.

He squints at you.

“Ginger? That’s the best you could come up with?”

You manage to shrug, even in your straitjacket.

“It works.”

He just puffs lightly at your reply, before speaking again “It’s dinner time. Thought you might want to join in?”

You hadn’t even thought about being hungry with all that had happened to you, but unsurprisingly as soon as someone mentioned food your stomach began to protest.

“You trust me enough to do this?” you ask, still unsure about your newly regained mental stability.

He takes a moment to gaze at you, while your stomach keeps criticizing your choice of ‘dialogue’ over ‘food’.

“I don’t know, I feel like you’ve truly changed. Must be something in your eyes.” He says smiling.

You nod, returning a little smile, and look down at yourself before standing up and stepping slowly towards him. “I’d love to have some dinner right now.” You murmur, your jaw aching faintly as you pronounced those few syllables.

Ginger makes way for you and lets you out of the door, strangely happy about you being out of the cell. He then takes you cautiously by your bounded shoulder and pulls you with him towards the end of the corridor.

“So, what did they cook tonight?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It always looks like a greyish not-so-inviting puddle.” He stops in front of an elevator and pushes the button, waiting for it to arrive. “They serve it seemingly 24/7, so you should get used to it.”  
You giggle “Don’t worry, it’s not my first trip to crazy-land.”

18:52

You were sitting in the most isolated table of the hall, away from any other patient and with a couple of guards watching your every move, albeit from afar.

It doesn’t take long for Ginger to come back to your table with what looked like… well, you really couldn’t tell. He wasn’t kidding about the questionable food.

He sees how you are looking at your meal and offers a supportive smile “Ready to eat… whatever this delicacy is, mrs. (y/s)?” “I have been dreaming this… thing for my whole life.” You jokily reply.  
A little bit of your shitty humor was flooding back into your veins. Good to know.  
He doesn’t take your straitjacket off, as you had imagined, but you didn’t think you would have felt your cheeks flush when he lifts the spoon near your face. “Do we _really_ have to do this?” Before you can close your mouth he has already fed you. “I don’t have any better ideas.” He murmurs, enjoying himself far too much in your opinion. You were munching with the sane side of your mouth, while the other side just rarely woke up to send pangs of pain running up your temple.

After a while, you look down at the table “Look, I’m sorry I hit you before. I don’t know what came to me.”

He stops the spoon mid-air. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m good.” He replies with a little smile. “Yeah, but-“ you are interrupted by another spoonful of… well, _that_. You gulp it down without even chewing it: you hadn’t realized how much you were starving.  
You kept silent, solely focusing on eating: it was bad, but still better than an empty stomach.

When nothing is left in your dish you manage to stifle a little burp, Ginger way too pleased with your reaction. “What?”

“It’s just… we’ve tried to feed you for a month. You have never eaten before. Besides Jeff’s arm of course.”

You slightly narrow your eyes “I-I don’t remember…”

“Before we put you into that straitjacket, you had a little room on your own. We used to bring you dishes, but-” he stops midtracks, looking into your eyes “I don’t know if I am supposed to tell you this.”

“Ginger, please…” he squints at you “You do realize that’s not my name, yes?” you just groan and roll your eyes, waiting for him to go on. “Look, it’s just… I’ve seen the records. You used to sniff the food suspiciously, and then throw it away. Sometimes out of the little window on the door, sometimes on a wall. Even your boyfriend behaved like that at first.” He mumbles while tidying the cutlery on the dish tray. “What do you know about Josh?” you immediately ask.

He puffs, looking at you with a worried expression “He was brought in the same day as you were. He refused to eat… at first. But then… it’s like he always wanted more. He’s come to eat almost a cow a day.” You just look at your emptied plate, a little and tattered memory slowly coming back.

You snort. “He must be starving. I saw him eat more than I would have ever deemed possible, even… for his kind.” “Y-you… did?” you manage to look at him. “He always brought back something for me, but it didn’t always belong to the same animal. In one day he would bring back three, four different parts. He probably conserved the carcasses in some hidden part of the cave, but…” you make a pause, take a deep breath “I’m almost sure  
he ate at least a couple of deer a day.”

 _Hopefully they were just deer…_  
You hear a whisper coming out of nowhere and immediately look around yourself, but when you realize it’s inside your head, you start to panic. You turn back to Ginger “Did you hear that?” “Hear what?”

‘Oh God… Not Again.’

You were on meds. Why here? Why _now_? It was impossible to hear voices in this situation. Could they get stronger? You didn’t know. It had never happened before.  
You regularize your breathing, but before Ginger can speak you feel someone stepping behind you.

“What the hell is she doing here??”

Ginger looks behind your shoulder, looking at the man who just spoke “Jeff, I didn’t see you com-“ “Are you crazy?! She can’t stay in here! Might attack someone else!” Ginger frowns, raising the tone of his voice “Look at us! It’s fine – _she_ is fine!”

“I will deal with you later.” He cuts him off menacingly. You turn towards the bitten man, who was grudgingly looking down at you. “The psychiatrist wants to speak with you again.” He mumbles as he fiddles with what you recognize as a muzzle “I’m not wearing that.” He looks at you dead in the eye “Yes you are.”

He puts an arm on the table and gets near you, face to face: let’s just say it wasn’t a nice view. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

19:29

You kept silent for the whole time it took you to reach the doctor’s room: sometimes he glanced down at you, and you replied with the most angry glares you could muster (given the situation, you realized you were not really that scary, but the man looked quite nervous and that was enough to please you).

When you finally reach your destination, he opens the door and pushes you through it, closing it behind him and crossing his arms on his chest, waiting outside.  
The doctor was sitting at his table, the only light coming from a lamp on top of it. He looks up at you, frowning lightly when seeing your muzzle “Take a sit, please.” He says with that affable smile of his.

You don’t like him. There is something completely off with him. You comply anyway, slowly pacing towards the chair and sinking into it.

“I hope you’re doing better than this morning, (y/n).”

“I’ll feel better when I’ll meet Josh.” His smile turns into grin. God, you _hated_ him. “Josh is recovering, just as you are doing: we don’t need to disturb him further.” You just exhale deeply and clench your teeth, sure you were about to insult him if you dared to open your mouth.

He reads some of his papers before looking back at you “Why did you bite that man?” he asks bluntly.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you don’t remember?”

You stare at him, that same hunger and madness you had felt earlier that day quickly shining in the back of your eyes. “He was keeping me away from Josh, as you all are. You don’t know how to protect him. How to treat him. I know, and you won’t let me help.”

He exhales deeply “I know it must be frustrating, not being able to help someone you care about so much. But it’s better this way: when you’ll fully recover, you’ll have complete access to his room, I promise.”

“I could do so much more if you just let me see him now!”

You feel your courage falter as he bangs his hand on the desk, shouting “You are not ready yet!”

Before you can reply, he slides a photo in front of you: dark haired girl, bright eyes under a little fringe. “Do you remember her?” you squint at it, but nothing comes back to your mind “N-no.” He slides another one, this time a blonde boy with glasses “This? Nothing yet?” you stare at it, hoping something would click into your brain, but you are just able to shake your head and admit defeat. He slides other photos in front of you, one after the other: you don’t remember any of these people, and you feel panic making you tremble, something shrinking inside your chest. You bite your lips, muffling the sobs that so desperately wanted to escape from your throat.

“How can you help him if you don’t even know what’s going on? Who you are??” “I-I… I could-“ “If you don’t recover you’re useless to them! All of them!”  
You glance at the photos, all of those eyes staring back at you. “Look at them, (y/n): all your friends, family. Some of them have died, and many still need you.”

You shake your head, trying to blink the tears away and failing: you hunch over yourself, unable to suppress your crying anymore, as he continues “And you can’t help them if you are in this state.” He stands up from his chair, stepping around the table “You can support them. And you will,” he squeezes your shoulder “but not now. You aren’t ready yet.”

He walks away from you, opening the door. The guard takes you from the scruff of your shirt and forces you to stand up and follow him back to your room.

You barely remember the trip back to the cell; there’s no memory, just the present: your eyes hurt, everything hurts again and your stomach is still sharply remarking your hunger.  
The lights suddenly switch off, leaving you surrounded by darkness: you bring your knees closer to your chest and bury your face in the soft pavement, crying your last tears before falling asleep.


	3. Flood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know why, but I feel like Bob Washington would have been motion captured on Robert Downey Jr.

5:22

_(y/n)? (yy/nnn)? Wake up._

“I’m not hearing you.”

_(y/n)._

“I’M NOT HEARING YOU!!”

You snap up and sit on the floor, panting heavily. “T-there’s nothing wrong with me, you don’t exist and you can’t make me listen to you.”

_Oh, (y/n), don’t talk to yourself right in front of the cameras. They’ll think you’re crazy._

As you look up, you realize it was telling the truth: there were little spherical cameras in every corner of the room. You turn around and crouch near a wall, making sure everything that would have been recorded was your back. “What do you want?”

_Besides messing with you?_

It chuckles.

_You know I just want to protect you._

“Mmh. That’s kinda hard to believe.”

_I don’t like the people you’ve been hanging out with lately. Too many undecipherable grunts, bad tempered. They even tried to kick me out of your head! Can you believe people these days…_

“Wa-wa-wa-wait, hold on: you mean… the wendigos?”

_No, I was talking about your granny- OF COURSE THE FUCKING WENDIGOS, you idiot!_

You had never thought about it: if they had tempted Josh in turning into one of them, maybe they had done the same with you. How come you resisted so long without chomping someone? You weren’t known for having such a great willpower under pressure…

“You… defended me?”

_Pfft, don’t say it like that: It's not like I had a choice._

All those nonsense ramblings were officially back inside your head. It was good in some way, because it meant you were still the old you, but… well, hearing voices sucks.

_Nice blouse. Do they make it in different colors?_

You look at your straitjacket: the last thing you needed right now was an imaginary voice mocking you.

_I think you’d totally rock in a pink shocking. Just sayin’._

“Please, shut up…” you murmur as you lean your head on the soft wall and close your eyes.

7:32

The voice didn’t stop for a moment speaking to you: you would have probably injured yourself as it was asking you, to trade the missing memories you couldn’t recall for that little bit of pain it was asking you; for the first time in the last 24 hours, you felt relieved you had been put into a straitjacket.

Your eyes snap open as you hear someone opening the door: the red haired nurse you had come to know so well poked his head inside the room.

“Hi.” You just nod at him in return. “I didn’t think you would be up so early.” You tilt your head, your lips forming a thin line as you make something up “I had… sleeping troubles…”

_Oh, now I’m a ‘sleeping trouble’??_

“What are you doing here?” Ginger shrugs, entering inside the room. “Doc wants to see you again. Says it’s urgent. Besides,” he fiddles with a syringe in between his fingers “last night I couldn’t give you your medicine.” “Oh. This explains a lot.”

_Oh-ho._

He frowns at you “What do you mean?” “N-nothing!” you slowly stand up, getting near him and tilting your head to the side, exposing your neck. The stinging pain only lasts for a moment: you barely feel it as the voice pleads you to stop him, before turning to a little whisper secluded in the back of your mind.

You shrug and give him a smile, before following him outside your room.

“So, what is it this time?” you turn to look at him, walking side by side. “Seems like there’s someone visiting you.” You raise your eyebrows, surprised: who could it be? There were so many people you knew… so many you still couldn’t remember. A flash of the photos from the previous night lingers in your mind as you keep walking down the cold corridor.

He stops in front of a door and opens it for you: as you look up, you notice a familiar stylized figure of a woman; “Are we going to meet them in the bathroom?” you sarcastically murmur while squinting at him, while he just gives you an annoyed glance in return “No, silly: your face looks like pure hell; maybe you could use a little stop by fresh water.” He pushes you inside without another word and starts unstrapping your straitjacket. “Whoawhoawhoa!” you take some steps further away from him, turning around “Are you serious!? I might-“ “You won’t attack me again.” You look at him with wide eyes “How do you know?” “I just know. Besides” he steps around you, reaching again for your back and undoing the last belts “I have a taser this time.” He murmurs slowly, and you don’t know if you’re feeling more relieved or menaced.  
You walk towards the sinks and turn the water on, washing your hands and face without thinking: you just wanted to meet these new people and be over it for today. When you look up in the mirror, you see a tattered face returning the gaze. You stare at it in disbelief, not being able to process the thought; but as you move around, it follows you. You realize what you’re seeing is truly you: your hair had grown so much since the last time you had seen yourself, the bags under your eyes had got darker and deeper, your cheekbones had hollowed and your entire face was covered in scars; you look down at your hands, seeing them scarred as well.  
“G-god…” tears blur your view “What happened to me?”

You feel Ginger squeezing your shoulder lightly “Do you need a moment?” you shut your eyes and shake your head, taking in a deep breath and stepping away from the sink “I’m fine.”  
He helps you get back into the straitjacket and you resume following him, your whole body now aching for answers.

7:37

Ginger leads you to the corridor outside a room you recognize as the one they had brought you in the first time you had met Alan: he’s waiting outside, reading something on one of his little notepads. When he sees you his fake smile crawls back to his face as he opens the door for you.  
“After you.” You glare back at him as you step through the threshold, seeing three chairs in front of you: two on one side of the table, while the other at the opposite side of the room. You walk around the table and sit in what you presumed was your chair, your feet brushing lightly against the floor.

The door opens once more and you see the psychiatrist enter it, followed by two people, a man and a woman: they both looked quite thrilled and… scared; they made their way inside the room anyway, a faint smile on the woman’s lips, while the man just stared at you.

Alan closed the door and put his hands behind his back, pacing around the table “So, (y/n), we’re here today to try to make you remember about your life before the… accident.” He makes a pause as your eyes dart from him to the couple sitting in front of you. You don’t know what to say, since whatever Alan was talking about wasn’t working: you still didn’t know these people. You lightly shake your head and look down “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.”

“(y/n)… it’s… it’s us. Don’t you really remember anything?” the man fiddled with his hands on the table, while the woman was silently starting to cry. “I- I’m sorry-“ “Please! It’s the only way to help our son!” you spotted Alan glaring at the woman in the corner of your eye, but something slowly clicked inside your mind. As the man put his hand on the woman’s shoulder to comfort her, you saw a thin leather bracelet, identical to the one Josh had, the one he treasured the most.

“I… I…” you take deep breaths as they look back at you. “I know you. We… used to shoot together.” They widened their eyes as you kept mumbling “It was summer. At the lodge. Josh was so happy we were all together. The girls, and…” you could almost hear their laughs, from that day. Suddenly, a name came to your mind “M-Melinda?” the fair headed woman didn’t stop crying, but smiled at you “Yes! I-It’s me, sweetie.” You started sobbing, guilt flooding back into your being “I’m so sorry for what happened. Josh…” you lower your gaze and shake your head. “I’m sorry. I-I couldn’t stop it. And I don’t know what to do. If I can’t see him…” the man gazed at you with a sorrowful expression, his eyes watering a little “It’s better this way. He’s-“ “I know what he has become!”

The room falls silent as you exhale deeply “I know he looks… different. But he’s still Josh.”

The couple took deep breaths, trying to maintain their composure, but Melinda soon started to cry again “My sweet boy. He turned into…” she couldn’t complete the sentence, but the doctor did it for her “…a monster.”

You turn to him, wheezing in a fit of rage: none of them was listening to you, just as everyone had done since you had woken up. “He’s not a monster.” He grins at you “Really? Haven’t you seen him?” “I know how he looks like. But I won’t let you call him like that.” “A murderer, then? A beast? How should I address him?” you stand up and step in front of him “HE DID IT TO PROTECT ME!” you feel small tears at the edges of your eyes as you clenched your teeth tighter, you fists drawing crescents in your palms.

He seems pleased with your response “How?” You look at him blankly: a memory was coming back, sure, but it wasn’t a pleasant one. Your throat seemed to tighten as you took a step back. “No… I don’t...” he closes the gap between the two of you and takes you by your shoulders “What happened to him, (y/n)??” you shake your head and close your eyes, letting him push you back into the chair. As you open your eyes, you see Melinda’s hand reaching for you from the other side of the table “Please, (y/n).”

You lick your lips and gulp, letting the memory flood back. “It was the eleventh or twelfth day we were down there. There was no food. I had never been so hungry in my whole life.” You inhale deeply as a couple of tears stream down your cheeks. “I felt so tired. I had to ration my meds, and Josh suffered from continuous nightmares. I needed to take care of him”  
You bite down on your lower lip “We couldn’t get out. We wouldn’t have survived the trip back to the surface. So Josh…” you stopped, a pitiful whine hummed inside your throat. “(y/n).” you felt the doctor’s hand squeezing your shoulder, spurring you to go on. “I fell asleep, and when I woke up…” you just shook your head, unable to describe it. You started weeping again “People turn into wendigos when they resolve to cannibalism, but Josh did it to protect me! He had to fight against the urge to retch it, none of my pleas worked! Oh god… when he turned…”

The crying took over you and you didn’t hear anything they were saying, stuck in the horrified memory of Josh eating Jack’s head. You barely felt two strong arms making you stand up and forcing you to walk out of the door.

8:24

It had taken you a while to calm down: Ginger had brought you into another room, making you sit on the thin mattress of the bed in the center of it.  
He kept stroking your back as he mumbled soothing words, your face buried in his chest. 

“There was nothing I could do!” you whine. “It all happened so fast, and then… oh god…” he had passed two weeks turning into… into _that._  
But then he was right: he was able to protect you, to take care of you just as you had done with him in the past days. You were safe, but the price had been too high.

“It’s okay now.” You fought back the idea of snapping at Ginger, letting yourself be lulled by that simple lie.

When you felt finally better, you slowly stood up, waiting for Ginger to do the same. “I just wanna go back to my room.” Ginger smiled at you. “This is your room.”  
You just stared at him, silently asking for an explanation. “I managed to convince them to take you out of that place. Up here it will feel…” “like I am less crazy than you want to think?”  
He shrugged “Possibly. But you keep misjudging yourself, (y/n).”


	4. Opportunity

20:56

The rest of the day had been actually very calm: nothing else happened, and although you hated not doing anything while Josh was in such a frail state you felt relieved Alan had spared you other visits for the time being.

Ginger had provided a new room: it wasn’t that much, but it was far better than the little white cubicle you had been secluded in. You were handcuffed to your bed, one wrist at each side of it, so you couldn’t move either, but at least now you felt more like a patient than an experimental subject.  
You heard footsteps coming from the corridor outside: there were many people arguing; after a while everything fell silent again: someone knocked on the door and without waiting for an answer Ginger got inside the room, while Alan and the other bitten guard were taking a peek inside before closing the door again behind him.

“Good morning!” you discarded his jolly tone and kept on with your monotonous one “Morning. Why are those two stalking you?” you ask pretty bluntly.  
“Yeah, uhm, see…” Ginger is nervously fiddling with his hands and you can’t help but sense that there’s something going on. He didn’t look you in the eyes, buying time while looking around, trying to find the right words. In the end he stopped moving, exhaled deeply and closed his eyelids. “Look, Doc wants to make a little… experiment.” You winced at the word, and his eyes met yours. “He technically can’t do this without your consent. So he’s been pushing me to talk you into it, and…” he makes a pause and looks directly at you “I don’t think you should do it.” You trusted Ginger, so his opinion was very important to you; but your curiosity took the best of you and you had to ask for more “Well, what is this about?”

He grimaces, uneasy, but keeps on talking “If I tell you you’ll accept without thinking.” You rolled your eyes and brought your hand on your heart, as much as the handcuff allowed you to. “I promise I will think about this, Ginger, just tell me.”  
He took in a deep breath “They want to put you near… Josh’s cell, see what happens, the ‘possible variations of his behavioral pattern’ and so on…”  
You took a moment to think, before speaking again “Where do I have to sign?”  
Ginger sighed in defeat, a huge ‘I told you so’ painted on his face. “Please, just… try to understand me. Josh needs me, and none of you can truly help him.” He turned around to get out of the door “Whatever, (y/n). I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

21:29

Plenty modules and three signatures later Ginger and the other bitten guy were taking you near the wall of Josh’s room. They immediately bound you to a chair, both your hands and your ankles, so that you couldn’t move at all. You heard Alan quarrelling with someone at the end of the corridor: you couldn’t tell who it was, though the voice sounded familiar.

In the end he just strode around the corner and reached a little desk positioned in front of you; you could see in the corner of your eye Melinda’s face peeking at you from the end of the aisle.  
You focus back on Alan, who had started speaking “So, you have already been told everything: for today, we’re going to spend the night here, monitoring Josh’s responses and see if what you say is true.” “He knows I’m here. I’m sure of it!” you bite back, quite angered by his mistrust.

He grins at you “We’ll see.”

After some minutes passed, a clicking sound came from the wall behind you: a little roar followed, and you knew that Josh must have been sniffing the air, trying to detect anything odd around him. He growled and banged on the wall: your body started on the little chair. “Josh?!” you call out, the word almost coming out in a whine as you pronounce it: the banging stops, but you can sense his movements behind you.  
The familiar high pitched whistle followed: he probably couldn’t believe they were really letting you two talk. “Yes Josh: it’s me!”

“(y-y/n)? Oh… what a relief hearing your voice!” you smiled widely, a little tear escaping your eye “It’s good to hear you too.” You sniffed lightly “Are you okay in there? They give you enough food?” “At times. You know how it is: sometimes it’s hungrier and… angrier than usual.”  
You look down, kind of worried: that was a problem. You weren’t in a facility from the fifties like the sanatorium, but you doubted that any wall or door inside the place could restrain a fully unleashed wendigo.

“What did he say?” you snapped back to reality when Alan asked you this. You lightly shake your head and look down. “At times he hasn’t got enough food, and…” you realize that if he had asked you, he hadn’t heard it from Josh. “Wait, you didn’t hear it?” the bitten guard scorned you “Hear what? He’s just grunting as usual!”

You widen your eyes “But he just spoke to me!” suddenly a claw taps on the concrete from the other side of the wall “(y/n)…” you tilt your head to listen to him “…we need to talk.”

22:44

“They don’t hear me. I know. But you do, and I’ve been thinking…” “Josh…” “If this wendigo shit is real, if they can possess people, then maybe… what if it possessed us both?” “What do you mean?”

You hear the sound of claws sinking into the wall “Don’t talk. I don’t know what will happen to us if they discover this.” He whined, and even you recognized something wendigoish in it this time. “I can’t lose you again.”  
“I’m here. Whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere.” That was your promise, and hell would have frozen before you would have let yourself break it. He felt relieved by you, and kept talking “I think it gets to you just at night. Even in the caves, during the day you were the normal you, while at night…” he pauses, probably nibbling his inner cheek in thought “…you were far too alike me.”

“What happened back then? I… don’t remember…” you didn’t receive a reply. “Josh?”  
“I… did some things. I don’t wanna talk about it.” That didn’t sound reassuring. “Okay.” You manage to mutter, your stomach giving you the feeling of forming a knot.

“I need you, (y/n). They don’t understand- they won’t do anything… about it. I don’t want to turn completely. Please, please, do something.” He makes a pause, probably fighting back tears “I’m losing grip on reality. It’s getting stronger than me, and I don’t know how to fight it back.”

“We’ll find a solution. There must be a way.”

“I’m sorry- I’m sorry so sorry-“ before you could say anything, he growled again and you distinctively heard his claws leaving long scratches on the other side of the wall. The growls became distant: he had probably gone to hide somewhere in the opposite side of the room.

“So, miss (y/s)…” you lift your gaze to meet the doctor’s one “Are you satisfied now?”  
They didn’t believe you. It was no surprise since they had just heard a girl talking to a groaning beast. He kept scribbling something in one of his notebooks and absently gestured to the guard to take you back to your room. As he undid the knots that were keeping you still you heard the noise of sharp heels thumping against the floor: Melinda was striding in Alan’s direction, an ominous look on her face. “What did you discover?” Alan didn’t stop writing, and replied without looking at her “Not now, Mrs Washington.” She banged her palms on the desk and the doctor finally stopped and looked up at her “Inside that room there’s my son, who’s suffering in ways I can’t even imagine! Now you’re going to tell me everything you have discovered or I’ll have to inform my lawyers, doctor Hill!”

You widen your eyes, staring at them: it was like she had just blurted out a huge piece of the puzzle you had been missing for far too long. “Hill… Alan Hill…” A desperate smile crawls up your lips as you close your eyes and shake your head “Of course, how could I be so stupid?!” your eyes had started to water, but you kept staring at him. “This is all your fault!”

Hill discarded your comment and was about to keep on writing, when Melinda turned towards you. “What do you mean?” Her tone was alarmed. Maybe someone would finally listen to you after all.  
You sniffed loudly “He was the one curing Josh, right? Have you ever felt like your son wasn’t sane at all, Melinda? That’s because he wasn’t.” you press your lips in a thin line, thinking back at all those months you had spent at Josh’s side, without even knowing about the existence of the Psycho.  
“Josh told me in the caves: you didn’t know because he had all the documents regarding his mental health. He didn’t suffer just from depression, no, he…” you take in a deep breath, looking down at yourself “He’s schizophrenic.”

“His other personality forced him to do what he did. He was the one that brought us back to the mountain, he pranked us… not Josh.” Melinda turned towards Hill, furious “Is it true?” a fake smile plastered on his face, he calmly responded “Of course not! It must be the medications getting to her head!” you and Melinda exchanged a deep glance: she spoke without looking at the doctor “I think we no longer need your assistance, doctor Hill.” Another fake laugh, but something looking more like a grin appeared on his face “You can’t be serious…” as Melinda wasn’t speaking, just glaring at him coldly, he stood up “This is my case, my discovery! You can’t take this away from me!!”

“As I already said,” she turned back to you and helped you up to your feet “speak with my lawyers.” She wound an arm around your shoulders and started walking down the corridor followed by Ginger, who led her towards your room.

23:41

You kept walking in silence, keeping your gaze low: you were very concerned about what Josh had told you, and you wouldn’t have known what to tell her anyway.  
You arrived to your room and Melinda let go of you, but she grabbed you again gently by your shoulders “You really did well today, (y/n).” You kept staring at her, unable to give a reply “I’m glad my son met you.” She then hugged you tightly, and just then you realized how tense and desperate she must have been while waiting for you to regain that little mental sanity you needed to tell them the truth.

She lets go of you and you look to her face “Goodnight, Melinda.” Ginger then walks you into your room while she waves goodbye and closes the door.  
You lay back into your bed and help Ginger handcuffing you again to it. “What happened there?” he asks without looking at you.

You breathe in deeply “I don’t know. I still have to understand it. At least I’ll have time to think about it now, in my new big room.” You try to shift subject: you trusted Ginger, but you and Josh’s secret was too precious and private, even for him. “Thank you, really.”

He smiles back at you “Don’t mention it.” He takes out the syringe and starts preparing your medicine when an idea pops into your mind: without Hill, maybe you would have been able to sneak out properly now; finally able to meet Josh.  
Still, you needed help with your plan, and unluckily for you, the only help you could get would have never been able to support you if you didn’t get rid of the meds first.  
You let Ginger syringe your neck this time, but before he can leave the room you put on your best puppy face. “Could I start taking my pills again? I actually hate needles.” He looks at you while opening the door, giving you a little smile “I’ll see what I can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took a while to write this, but I was kinda stuck and had to rewrite it some times before having a version that worked decently enough to be posted.
> 
> thanks for reading, kudos, anything! really makes my day ;)


	5. We meet again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you’ve already understood, I suck at writing about escapes…

12:34

The fateful day had finally come: you had worked hard to get here, but there was still much to be done. As one of the attendants brought your lunch he gave you the usual pill cup, and you lifted it to your lips and tilted your head back: you smiled at him as you returned the empty cup, hiding your pills underneath your tongue.  
As soon as he got out of the room, you spat them out and carefully hid them inside your pillowcase;

This had been the routine for the past three days: the most difficult part was avoiding to reply to the voices while they kept blabbing on and on seemingly non-stop; at first you had found it annoying, but now you actually felt relieved they were helping you: when they had understood what you wanted to do, they didn’t hesitate to help you; after all, living with a wendigo had seemed a death warranty from the very beginning: even though you weren’t ‘paying’ them right away, the sole idea of all the scratches a simple kiss would have given you were more than enough to satisfy them.

Anytime you thought about what you were doing guilt made you regret your every decision, but you kept telling yourself it was necessary: you didn’t know how much time you had left before Josh turned completely; if that happened, you’d have lost him forever.

_It shouldn’t be difficult: go on, you can do this._

The voices encouraged you, but you saw many possible bad outcomes in their so called ‘plan’; still, you hadn’t got a lot of choices here.  
The idea was quite simple, and that could have been already a fatal mistake: it was too simple. Something that could work in a film, a video game, but not in real life.  
You cleared your throat and proceeded anyway, hoping it would turn out for the best.

You called for the attendant, hoping they would let you go to the bathroom without too many questions: you had carefully built a trusty image in the past days; you were almost sure you would have been able to make them leave you alone, still you weren’t that sure the plan would have worked. Luckily, the voices kept whispering what to do in your ears.

_This is just the beginning: you can’t give up now._

The door opened and you saw the last person you wanted to meet right now. The guard you had bitten many days ago stood on the threshold, staring at you.  
“What is it?”

_Go on. It’s just something we hadn’t planned. We still can do it._

Your mouth was left agape as you were listening to the voices: you blink a couple of times before speaking. “I need to use the bathroom.” He snorts and walks out of the door, getting back shortly after with the usual straightjacket in his hands. You exhale deeply “Do we really have to??” he stares again at you, something minacious shining in his eyes “Yes. We have.”  
He slowly frees you from the handcuffs and quickly binds you tightly inside the clothes, pulling you back on your feet. You get out of the door, heading towards the bathroom while he controls your every move.  
“Do you really have to follow me? I can do this by myself.” The guard just gave you a one eyed glare as he towered at your side while walking down the corridor.  
You arrived to the bathroom and he opened the door for you: you stepped inside and looked around, thinking about something to get rid of him; he undid the straps of the straitjacket and closed the door behind you, giving you some time to think about a new plan.

_Just kick him unconscious already!!_

“Didn’t you see him? He’s like twice my size!”

Time kept passing but you still had no idea about how to get rid of him: with other attendants, you could have used a puppy face to convince them or trick them, but with him… that just wouldn’t work. As you kept looking around the room you heard a voice from the outside.  
“Have you finished in there?” you saw a fire extinguisher laying underneath one of the sinks, and took in a deep breath while the voices kept remarking the foolish idea that had popped into your mind. ‘Oh god.’ You took it in your hands: it’s small but very heavy; maybe if you swung it with enough force…

“I don’t know if I wanna do this…”

_You don’t have a choice._

He didn’t wait for your reply and opened the door: you quickly hid the fire extinguisher behind your body and looked at him. “Can we go?” you took a moment to think, another suggestion whispered softly into your ear. “I think one of the sinks is broken.” You motioned towards the last one, in the darkest corner of the room. “I’ll let the technicians know-“ “It’s broken badly: someone should check it now, before the entire floor gets flooded.” He stared at you, weighing his decisions. He walked past you, unsure about giving his back to you. As he inspected the sink you bent your knees and swung the fire extinguisher, aiming for his head, but he caught it mid-air.

“Ah, you little!!” he grabbed it and yanked it away from your hands, pushing you and making you fall back on the floor. You kicked yourself back on your feet and tried to reach for the door, but he was quicker than you and took you by your shirt, yanking you back towards him and punching your stomach so hard you crumbled to the ground, grabbing it and coughing.

He turned you around and forced you into the straitjacket once more, pulling you back on your feet; as he was closing the last straps you heard another whisper: without thinking, you let the voices control you and snapped your head backward, headbutting the guard right in the middle of his face so hard he fell on the floor without as much as a movement.

You crouched next to him: he was still breathing, luckily. He had been a jerk to you, but you didn’t want to hurt him. A lot.

You take in a deep breath and stand up, twisting and almost losing your balance because of the damn straitjacket. You move near the door and push the door handle down with your elbow; you then push the door slightly open with your foot and take a peek outside: the corridor looks quite clear, so you keep listening for a couple of seconds and, hearing no footsteps approaching, decide to get out and look for Josh’s room.

You recognize the room where you had met Hill for the first time: digging back into your memory and with the voices’ help, you manage to find your way towards the elevator. You hide behind a corner when you see doctors walking down the corridor: you release the breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding when you see them walking down the aisle without noticing you.  
You bite down on your lip and focus one more time on the task at hand: you recognize the wall Hill and the others had brought you to when they had made you talk to Josh just a few days ago; you dive behind another corner as you see a man in white overalls getting out of it: it was near Josh’s room. It had to be the one.

You stealthily approach the door and widen your eyes when you see it was a doorknob this time: you couldn’t open it without using your hands. As you kept thinking about what to do the door opened again, another doctor wearing glasses looked down at you. “What are you doing here?”

You were about to panic when the voices quietly whispered you what to say “I was told to come here.” He narrowed his eyes at you. “Who told you?” “Doctor Hill. And Tyler – you know, tall guy, ginger hair? Yes?” he looked you up and down and then tried to look for any attendants at both sides of the corridor: seeing none nearby he decided to let you in the room for the moment; as he closed the door behind you you saw you weren’t in the right room, but in the one adjacent to Josh’s one. It looked like… an observation room. There were a couple of desks facing a big window, both rooms completely dark except for the lights coming from the monitors of the computers. You approached the window as you heard the man behind you lifting the receiver of a telephone and dialing a couple of numbers.

Suddenly, something moved in front of you: as the figure stood up, you recognized the deformed body of your boyfriend; he snarled in front of the window, his pupils dilated.  
“Josh…” you murmur in a low voice, and he widens his eyes, his pupils shrinking back to a normal size.

“I wish to speak with Doctor Hill. It’s… urgent.” You hear the man mumbling, and as you turn around you see him looking at you.  
“Grrr… grr…” you turn around again, seeing Josh trying to speak. “Gr(y/n)..”  
As you look at him, you see him put his big hands on the looking glass, trying to make you understand what he wanted to do. You take a couple of steps back as he puts more force onto it, while the man behind you keeps frantically speaking to someone. The glass cracks easily, and with a crush you close your eyes, feeling two long arms envelope you in a tight embrace, his teeth ‘kissing’ you on your neck. He lifts you with him and brings you to his side of the room “I’m here, it’s alright.” You smile at him as he turns around and walks on the opposite side of the room, dropping you on one of the many mattresses piled on that side: it looks like they had left him an entire hall, since there were still a lot of beds laying around the room. The only light was coming from a huge window that covered the entire length of the wall on your right.

Josh towered over you and kept grazing his teeth on your body, slowly biting away the upper part of your straitjacket. His claws gently grazed your sides and he dragged his palms over the back of your shoulders, carefully scraping and cutting the cloth until you could move your arms again. You hugged him back and cupped his face, pulling him in a soft kiss, placing it where he had still got some of his lips, to make him feel it.

He snaps around as a banging sound comes from the other room, from behind the now shattered glass: you see some men barging into the room, one of them shouting your name. You recognize the voice as Ginger’s one, and you soon spot Hill among the crowd.  
“(y/n), come back here. You’re not safe with… him.” A couple of attendants entered the room from the broken glass, pointing tasers towards Josh. “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone!!” But as you say so, Josh growls towards them, standing up and towering over them. You push yourself back on your feet, keeping the tattered clothes close to your chest so to cover yourself; you step in front of Josh, but one of his clawed hands stops you from going any further and presses on your chest to make you get closer to him, making you take a step back until your back hits his stomach.

“You’re the ones not safe right now!” you yell, trying to look at all of the men in front of you. “he could have barged right through that glass, any time now! He didn’t because he wants to help too.” You take in a sharp breath. “If you either hurt him or me, I don’t know if he’ll be able to restrain the wendigo. Please.” You look in Ginger’s direction and he lowers the gun, and shortly after the other men do the same.  
The only one taking steps forward is Hill, who looks almost… fascinated, staring up towards Josh. “You knew how to talk the entire time, didn’t you?” He snapped back at you “How did you do it? You must tell me-“ he took a step too far and Josh shrieked, sprinting towards him and lifting him from the collar of his overall. He shrieked again, and this time you felt like the high pitched noise cut through your skull, making your knees weaken and fall on the ground. “You piece of shit! This is all your fault!!”  
You almost couldn’t believe your ears “Josh…?” he was… speaking. Not grunts, but he was talking like his normal self, like the other night…  
After a second the high pitched noise disappeared and Josh was just snarling again, muttering grunts and groans, his teeth almost grazing Hill’s face.

“Joshua Washington!” you stood up again taking a step towards him. “Put him down!” you spelled your words with a lot of emphasis, since you weren’t sure he would have listened to you. He tilts his head and looks at you with the corner of his eye, his dilated pupils slowly contracting back to normal “Now, Josh.” He grunts and lets Hill fall on the ground, turning around towards you and walking past you, slightly crouching behind you to hug you from behind. You caress his forearms as they envelope you and look towards Ginger, discarding completely the panting and paleish Hill now laying on the ground.

“Get out. I’ll let you know when we’ll be able to talk with you again.” You feel Josh’s claws grazing your skin “And bring me a change of clothes, please.” You quietly look as the men step out of the room from the window they had barged in: now that your eyes have adapted to darkness, you see that the door that connected the corridor with Josh’s room had been walled up.

‘They’re not as careless as they look…’ you tell yourself.

When everyone’s out again, you exhale deeply, relieved. “Gr(y/n).” he grazes his teeth against the back of your neck. “Misshed you…” you turn around and hug him back, feeling him pick you up again and holding yourself against his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this story my protagonist was called Gwen, so when Josh growled her name was GGGRwen, and that’s absolutely cute. I don’t know if it works with other names, didn’t really give a thought about it.


	6. Old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring "the most dumb way to kill Emily in the history of the world".

\---------------------  
You had got used relatively quickly to the caves’ moisture: it was hard at first, but now they felt almost like a second home to you; it was probably because of Josh: it wasn’t that bad living in there when a wendigo was protecting you; he was never too far from you, ready to defend you against anything. You didn’t care if he had changed, as long as he kept being himself.

As you kept pacing around the place, you heard Josh’s usual whistle calling you, but this time it sounded more… urgent. You run towards him, jumping and dodging the rocks that littered the cave pathway, until you finally spot his silhouette in the darkness of the cave: as you get near him you realize he’s stuck on the ground, held still by something. “What happened?” he looks at you and motions with a whine to the bear trap that had caught his ankle; it wasn’t that bad: if it had happened to you it would have chopped one of your limbs off, while his wendigo skin had prevented it to happen, though it must have been still painful.

You look carefully around yourself and spot an ancient shovel leaning near one of the walls; you pick it up and go back to Josh, using it as a lever to force the trap open.  
As you push down Josh takes the two jagged parts with his hands and opens them fully, taking away his leg from it. “Why would anyone do this?” you whisper, softly caressing his hair back. He barely looks at you, then his head snaps towards one end of the cave, and soon you hear the voices coming from it too.

You silently reach for Josh’s side as he stands up and pushes you behind him, sensing danger; the light of some flashlights shines just in front of you: it is almost blinding, as you weren’t used anymore to something that wasn’t the caves’ darkness.  
You started trembling: something told you that even if those were humans, you would have never been safe with them; they would have hurt Josh, and he was everything to you.

Before he decides to engage them in a fight, you pull at Josh’s hand, making him look down to you: you need just a glance to explain him everything, and soon he pulls you up on his back, helping you climb up. You put your hands around his neck, to steady yourself, when you hear a voice calling you.

“Stop, you two!” Josh just hissed at them and run into the back of the caves, careful not to drop you.

\---------------------------------  
2:34

You feel Josh softly kissing the side of your neck as you slowly wake up, taking in a deep breath. You moan a little and drag one of your hands to the back of his neck, caressing him softly. He separates from you and smiles, showing way too many teeth. “You were making such funny noises while sleeping.” He murmurs chuckling. Now that you saw him too while speaking you realized he wasn’t actually moving his lips: it was more like you heard him right inside your head.

“I… still hear you.” He sits up, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know. It’s not good, but… I’m glad it’s still working.” You sit as well, taking his hands with yours. “Could it really be that bad? Nothing happened so far.” “It could get worse anytime now.” He closes his eyes, his brows crook in a painful expression “I couldn’t stand to… infect you with this burden.” “Josh…” you caress his cheek and he looks again at you, pushing you one more time underneath his weight “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” You smile at him “I know.” He kept saying that. He knew that he may have not had a lot of time left, before turning into something more alike to the old miners.

“I want to save you, (y/n).” “Save me from what?” “From becoming like me.”

He makes a pause and cuddles on top of you, his fingers softly grazing against your shoulders.

“I don’t know why, but… back in the caves, you didn’t behave like me. I don’t want this to happen to you too.” He murmurs softly while stroking the back of your neck with both hands and gently leaning his forehead against yours. “But I haven’t behaved like you until now.” His eyes slightly widen, concern twisting his features. “Don’t you remember when they brought us food?” “Did we have dinner yet?” you ask almost surprised: you sincerely didn’t remember it…

He looks at you concerned one last time before standing up and pacing in the center of the room. “What happened, Josh?” he chewed on one of his dark fingernails as he kept thinking: he turned back to you slowly “You… well… discarded any cutlery. Chopped on your steak… like…” “like a wendigo.” You murmured, defeated. He takes in a deep breath “Yes. Don’t you remember?” you shake your head, realizing your amnesia could have been linked to the wendigos more than what you had previously thought.

“But you said it didn’t happen to me in the caves…” Josh hummed a positive response as you kept thinking. "You were a little bit feral, but you never chomped on food like that." He sat on the edge of the bed near you, the tongs squeaking under his weight. “What changed?” Josh looked away from you, thinking as hard as he could as well.

4:45

You couldn’t fall asleep again: no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t ignore this huge trouble. Josh was being hyperactive since wendigos mainly got out at night: you thought he couldn’t help it, even though seeing him crawling around the ceiling had become more and more annoying as you kept trying to think.  
You were laying on a mattress, facing the ceiling and with your fingers intertwined on your stomach, quietly scratching them as you kept thinking.

When you were about to break the skin, you snapped up sitting, an idea finally forming into your mind. “I know!” Josh stopped midtrack on the wall and slipped, falling on the ground but quickly standing up again, dramatically dusting his clothes as he approached you. “What?”

“The… the guy…” you blink, forcing yourself to remember. “with the fire… Jack, I think?” Josh jumped on top of a bed and crouched on it, waiting for you to continue. “He had given me this… this little statue… I had completely forgotten about it.”

“And?” “It… I think it protected me from the wendigos.” You lower your gaze to your hands “It’s the only thing I can think about.”

He smiles at you, softly puffing. “It’s not much, but it’s something to start with! Besides” he quickly jumps next to you, sitting back normally on the mattress “It’s not the craziest thing that ever happened to us. It could work.”

15:07

You are sitting on one of the beds in the center of the dark room, fiddling with your nails: there wasn’t a lot you could have done without help; the first thing you had done that morning was informing Ginger of the trinket: not everything of course, just enough to make him understand how important it was to you. If there was anybody that could have helped you, that was him.  
You lift your gaze and see Josh’s body peacefully sleeping in a corner of the room, his chest slowly raising as he dreamt.

You almost get lost in thought again when you hear someone tapping on the window glass “(y/n)?”  
It was Ginger. You immediately stand up and pace in front of the window, hoping he had found the trinket you needed so badly “Yes?” “You have visits.”  
The lights on the other side of the glass switch on: you narrow your eyes and cover them with your hand; you blink a couple of times before your eyes adjust to the new light.

Ginger was standing on the other side of the mirror glass with a blonde girl at his side: she kept staring at you with wide eyes, then she blinked as if remembering why she was here. “(y-y/n)? I… I was told you have amnesia. Do you remember-“ “Sam.” You cut her off: a little smile forms on her lips “It’s good to see you.” You say returning the smile.  
You immediately look to your side, and then quickly back to her “Josh is sleeping right now.” “I-it’s okay. It’s already… great to see you.” Ginger had been silent for the whole time: as you both look to him, he turns around and pushes one of the chairs near the desk in Sam’s direction. “I’ll leave you two alone.” He murmurs before getting out of the room.

Sam sits on the chair and you pull one of the beds nearer the window, sitting on it. You don’t really know what to tell her: it was difficult to find something to start with, you had so many questions, so many topics you had to thread carefully with.  
She was the one to speak first. “How is your memory?” you bite down at your lips: you didn’t want to make the burden of your problems fall on Sam’s shoulders; even though you would have loved to tell her everything, you didn’t feel you had the right to deliberately drag her once more into this nightmare.

“It’s… fine, I guess. Some things are still blurred, but…” you take in a deep breath “I manage. I guess.” She kept smiling at you all the time: she hadn’t let that night change her, luckily. Or at least this was what she let people think about her.  
“How… are the others, if I may ask?” her expression suddenly saddened: she brought her hands closer to her chest as she tried to find the right words “I know about Matt and Jessica.” You murmur, faintly recalling the shape of their twisted corpses hanging in the caves. “And Emily…” "What? She…”

Sam just nodded: she tried to maintain her composure, but you could see tears welling up in her eyes. You look to your side and cough lightly, trying to switch topic “What about Ash and Chris?” as you said those two names, her face lightened up “You will never believe this…” a smile crept up her lips. She was about to tell you everything, when you heard Josh loudly landing on the spot on the bed just beside you: you were used to his wendigoish quirks, but Sam jumped on her chair when she saw him.  
He just stood there, with that shit eating grin of his, as Sam spat insults at him.

“It’sh... grrood to see you too... Shammy.” She stops to take a deep breath, and when she looks at Josh again she smiles. “I’m so glad you’re alive.” A tear runs down her cheek, but she soon brushes it away. “…you both.”  
Before she can have more time to stare at Josh’s malformed features, you hear him asking “Weren’t you... telling shomething about Crashley?” you stare at her, shaking your head lightly “I don’t approve this name, but he wouldn’t hear any reasons.” You whisper.

Sam smiles and closes her eyes “You’re going to like this: they’re finally a couple!” you two throw your arms in the air and hug each other: after all those years and all those failed attempts, those two were finally together. “I’m glad shomething worked out, at least…” he murmurs as he soflty lets go of you: you take Josh’s hand and squeeze it lightly, hoping to give him some courage back.  
You then turn to Sam again, asking about the last member of the group “What about Mike?” you hear Josh faintly growling beside you, but maybe you had just imagined it.

“He… uhm…” Sam’s expression saddens again, and when he looks down she gets slightly paler “Sam? What’s wrong? Did he…” “No! No, he didn’t die, but…”

She looked at you with watery eyes: if she was in this state it must have been really something horrible; you had seen Sam crying just once, when her mother died. She was usually the tougher of the group, and seeing her so broken made something inside your chest shrink.

She told you about Chris’s frantic run back to the lodge: they had told their stories to the police so many times they almost knew each other’s versions by memory now. She told you about Emily being bitten, and about the gun.  
She was almost at the edge of tears when she finished.

“Mike… he did wrong, we know it, but we were all so scared.” She takes in a deep breath “The police wouldn’t listen to us: they just thought Mike was the murderer, and had made disappear also Matt and Jess. The trial was completely fake, just something to please the public. He'll stay in jail for years if we don't do something.” “But they must have found the corpses in the cave! And the wendigos!” you look up to Josh, who returns your stare “They can’t deny all of this!”

“They can, apparently.” Sam looks at you again, and for the first time that day you truly see how broken she is “If you want to find answers, you’ll better start searching for them by yourself, (y/n). Nobody will listen to you out here.”


	7. Feeble results

11:51  
Days passed quickly, and nobody seemed to care enough to give you any news or options about what to do with the wendigo. Even if you had hoped otherwise, Sam's words were proving to be truthful: if you wanted to delve back into this mystery and solve it once and for all you would have had to do it on your own.

"Well, at least I'm not completely alone in this..." you thought as you saw Josh peacefully sleeping at your side; as you looked him lightly snoring you involuntarily focused on his teeth: you would have sworn they had gotten slightly bigger and sharper in the last period; you tried to blame your imagination, but you knew you were somehow right, though clearly exaggerating.

Ginger's head appeared on the other side of the window, looking inside the dark room to try and spot your silohuette: when he finally did, he greeted you by waving his hand and motioned to come closer.  
"I need to talk to you."  
You look at him for a moment before unwillingly leaving Josh's side and quietly pacing towards him "What is it?" "I'd feel better if I could talk to you face to face."  
You falter "We are face to face." "I mean _more_ face to face." He whispers as he motions you to go towards the door that connected Josh's room and the observatory room. "Is this going to take long?" You saw his lips press together in a thin line "Maybe."  
You puff lightly. "Give me a moment then." You turn around and step near Josh's bed: you softly caress his cheek and he takes in a deeper breath before opening his eyes. "(y/n)? Ish it... morning already?" You smile "It was morning three hours ago, sweetie." "Oh. I... overshlept again..." he mumbled as he sat up on the mattress. He wound his arms around your waist and held you near him "Need shomething?" "I need to go to outside of the room. I don't know how long it will take." He made a disgruntled noise that sounded a mixture between a growl and one of his typical whistles. "You really have to?" He sounded pretty infuriated by it "I guess so." He hummed deeply and let go of you. "Fine." You stepped away from the bed.  
"I'd never forbid you to do something. But don't take too long."

You looked him one last time before turning around and heading towards the little door Ginger was holding open for you: Josh seemed to be growing sedentary and possessive, neither of which had ever been traits of his character. If the wendigo had started affecting even his personality there was really a whole new lot to be worried about.  
You pushed these thoughts away and tried to have a neautral expression while talking to Ginger: there was a gleam in his eyes that made him look pretty excited about this talk.  
"I have many news. First off," he broke eye contact with you to look inside one of his pockets and pulled out of it Jack's little wooden trinket. You immediately widened your eyes at the sight of it and took it from his hands. "Oh, thank you!" You said as you pulled him in a tight hug;  
seeing your exaggerated reaction you could tell he was about to ask you what it really was, so you replied before he could do so. "It was a gift, from a friend. He... he died on the mountain. That night." And it keeps the wendigo from possessing me, you completed in your mind.  
"I'm sorry." Jack's head flashed in front of your eyes for a brief moment: you had never really coped with it. Even if you barely knew him, he had saved your life. He had been indeed a dear friend after all.  
"Nevermind. Is there anything else?" "Tell me, which first: the good news or the not-so-good news?" You puffed lightly: even if you'd have had to face the bad news anyways, you allowed yourself to take a little break from them right now. "The good ones, please." A little smile appeared on Ginger's lips. "Then follow me: you have visits." He turned around and walked out of the observation room: as you stepped through the treshold you narrowed your eyes: the corridor was much more lighted than Josh's room was.

You remained silent for the whole trip towards the elevator; you had no idea who could it be: you had started remembering your friends and family, and you kept wondering who could it be this time. As the elevator dinged open you followed Ginger towards the usual visit room: from the glass on top of the window you could see the back of a woman sitting in the chair; she was fair headed and her bent shoulders somehow made her look even more tired. When Ginger opened the door for you she turned around and, after seeing you, stood up and widened her eyes.  
As you stared at her features you felt speechless, the only word you wanted to say seemed to be stuck in your throat.

"...mum?"

Big tears stained her cheeks as she put a hand on her mouth. You felt water covering your face as well and you strode towards her and enveloped her frail form in a tight hug.

13:47

You two talked for a really long time: you couldn't tell her the whole story, and the little you could say still sounded like a plain hallucination even to your ears.  
After hearing of your disappearance she dived into work, hoping to be able to resist; when the police charged Mike with your and the others' murder she felt her world collapsing on her. And when Melinda had phoned her, when she had heard the news, it was all too much to take it all in.  
She was sorry for not being there first, but she did the best she could; even though that excuse was getting old, you didn't mind it at all right now.

You waved her goodbye as Ginger closed the door behind you to take you back to your room.

Before making you enter back inside of Josh's dark room he started talking;  
"Now, the last thing I needed to tell you is that the doctors are planning to make some exams. The problem is you should try to convince Josh to do them." "Why wouldn't he want them?" "Because...we are afraid the" he made a pause, fighting against the foolishness of the term "...wendigo, might show. He has to be restrained." "Restrained? How?" "He'll be bound to a chair so that doctors may take all samples they need."

You narrowed your eyes at him. "I don't see why you should do that either." "(y/n)-" "No, stop it. He is here because he wants to, and after seeing what Hill did to him I won't let any of you harm him. I will talk to him, but I can already tell you your conditions are unacceptable."  
You gave him one last stare before entering the room and closing the door behind you.

As you turned around Josh takled you to the ground, kissing your neck and grazing the back of his fingers on your body, making you laugh.

18:36

Before the night came and the wendigo could cloud his judgement you decided to speak with Josh about the matter: it was, after all, the first time in all those days the doctors were proposing you something; it was worth to take it in consideration.

"Josh?" He hummed, waiting for you to continue. "We need to talk. Ginger told me something important today." He hummed again, deeper this time: he didn't like this friendship between you and the nurse;  
"He... told me the doctors would like to examine us; examine... you." He turned around and glanced at you from above his shoulder "You aren't telling me everything, mh?" "And they want to restrain you. They fear the wendigo almost as much as we do." He silently thought about it for a moment, then he looked at you again "I don't want them to... examine me." You sat beside him on the bed "I think it's worth trying. I'm not saying we should let them have full control of you but-" He stood up and walked away from you "I'm not doing thish, (y/n)!" You followed him around the room "But this is already something! If they could understand-" "Look at me, (y/n)! If they had _any_ idea about what wash happening to me they would have already done shomething about it!!" "Josh..." he lowered his gaze, unable to see you cry. He turned around but you got closer to him and hugged him from behind. "I'm doing my best here; I just want you to take this in consideration."  
He groaned, but grazed your fingers with his claws. "Let me think about it. Tomorrow I'll give you an answer."

You sighed and let go of him, climbing on one of the beds and curling underneath the blankets: it wasn't much, but it was something at least.

8:34

When Ginger came in to bring you breakfast you finally had your answer: Josh hadn't slept for the whole night and had woken you up in the middle of it to ask for your opinion more times than you wished you could remember. 

"We accept; on one condition: no restraints. No bindings, no drugs of any sorts. I'll stay with him for the whole time, helping him when you can't."  
Ginger had simply pressed his lips together, as he always did when he was nervous, and left you with your breakfast, just to come back minutes later with the doctors' response.  
He stuck his head inside the door "They accepted; whenever you are ready, guys..."

8:54

The exams weren't as crazy as you had first thought: just regular check ups, blood pressure test, x-ray plates and so on. He was like the other wendigos: too weak to be alive and yet breathing;  
It went on relatively well until they told you they needed a sample of his blood: the first time the doctor tried to put the needle in his arm it simply broke. When you explained them his skin would have deflected bullets, the problem became even bigger.  
Josh was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, mustering his patience to wait for someone else to try to take his blood. You kept telling yourself it was necessary as you explained the doctors what to do with his skin.

The stench of burnt flesh filled your nostrils for a brief moment: you felt Josh tightening his grip on your hand as the doctor pushed in the syringe and took a large quantity of his blood. Josh growled at the little man and the doctor quickly pulled the needle out and placed a tiny piece of cotton on the wound he had left.  
He snarled again as he pressed it against his skin, stopping the little trail of blood.

When it was all over you accompanied Josh back to your room and gave him a reassuring hug before going to your last exam that day.

14:23

The psychologist room was just what you would have expected: a little sofa placed near the window, a desk and two chairs near it facing a huge library, some certificates hung here and there; your eyes drifted toward the name of the doctress, happily registering it was a woman and thus not Hill. You kept fiddling with your hands as she entered the room.  
"Hello (y/n)." She said as she made her way towards her chair and sat down: you didn't reply to her, waiting for her to start. "I hope we'll get some result with your amnesia today. I'm happy to know you and Josh accepted to do this."  
You were expecting her to start off with the usual questions - it wasn't your first time with a psychologist and you somehow knew it wouldn't have been your last - so you were a little startled when you saw her taking a little pocket watch and lifting it at your eye level.

"I need you to tell me what happened in the caves, (y/n)."


	8. Remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would have updated it earlier, but I'm lazy :-)
> 
> Double update!!

16:34

When you came back to Josh later you felt your head very heavy: as the nurses let you back inside the room you saw Josh lifting his head from his... dinner, if one could call it that way, and looking at you. Your eyes darted towards the dead animal's carcass, but you soon looked at your side.  
"Babe? How did't go?" You heard him wipe away the blood dripping from his chin with the back of his hand: you closed your eyes and gulped, nausea taking over you. It had never bothered you before, but now you couldn't stand to look at him.  
"Fine." You muttered, slowly pacing towards the nearest bed and sitting on top of it. Josh started licking his fingers clean as he looked back towards a little dishtray. "If you want to your friend has brought something you can eat." He said while pointing with his thumb behind him; you raised your eyes but soon lowered them again: seeing that, Josh paced towards you and crouched in front of you, caressing your calves with his claws. "You don't look ok." He murmured. "I'm just a little... nauseous. Don't worry." "Did they do something to you?" He asked it as a question but he was so concerned it looked like a threat. "No." You muster the courage to look at his mauled face and caress his cheek "Stop worrying about me. I'm fine."  
Before he could protest you heard the usual tapping on the window glass, so you stood up and stroked Josh's hair while doing so, pacing near the window. 

"Hello?"

It was a girl voice: she couldn't see you in the darkness of the room, but you could see both her and the blond boy standing beside her. He looked tired, dark circles around his eyes, while she had a thin scar under her eye.

He leant towards her "Do you think it's the right room? Maybe-" "Chrissy?" You cut him off. He stopped talking and flinched, almost trembling. "Ash? Is that you guys?" You said without getting out of the shadow, standing away from the light coming from the observatory room "Oh my god (y/n), is it you?!" You saw them trying to see through the thick veil of darkness but you almost shielded your face with your hands at the only thought of your old friends looking at you; you hadn't forgotten how you looked: with those scarred features you would have given them a heart attack. "Yes. It's... it's me." Ashley kept cupping her hands near her eyes, trying to see you, while Chris kept blankly looking around the room, reaching for Ashley's hand at his side from time to time.

"Could you please step closer? We can't see you." You put your hands near your face, briefly closing your eyes and taking a step forward. "I'm a little tattered." 'Both physically and mentally.' The headache from the psychologist's session hadn't yet faded. "I-it's okay buddy. We have all left the lodge...a little marred." You took another step forward with your eyes closed, and you faintly heard them gasp from behind the glass.

When you opened your eyes, you saw theirs water; Chris even sniffed loudly. "It's so good to see you again."  
You heard heavy footsteps approaching: you had almost forgotten about Josh's presence inside the room. He stopped some foot back, getting closer enough just for you to notice. You clear your throat.  
"I'm happy to see you two together." They looked at each other as you said so, intertwining their fingers. "We are too." Ashley murmured.  
"We were told Josh was here." Chris said, without lifting his gaze from his and Ash's hands.  
The footsteps approached even more.

"Cochish?" You just saw Chris widen his eyes while looking at your side: Josh was towering over you all now that the wendigo had made him grow.  
"M-man..." a little tear escaped from his eye and he quickly wiped away some others. "We thought you died..."  
Josh smirked "Eh... not yet."

17:49  


You kept talking with each other for quite a long while: there were so many things Chris and Josh had to tell each other, and you ended up talking with Ashley, almost gossiping just as you used to.

As you looked at the two boys telling jokes and stories to each other, you couldn't help but murmur "I'm happy to see you and Chris are holding up." Ashley smiled a little "He's been getting better and better." "Was it tough?" "At first. But then we saw some doctors... Chris adopted another cat. Named it weirdly" She nodded while smiling towards her new boyfriend "We're doing good."

As you looked at Josh talking with his old friend, you couldn't help but wonder if there would have been a future for you too. You uncounsciously gripped the tiny wooden trinket sitting inside one of your pockets, hoping it would have made things turn out a little bit better somehow.

\-----------------

"J-josh?" You felt so vulnerable without him protecting you: you were shivering and your breaths kept condensing in front of your eyes. "Josh!" You shouted again, louder this time; without hearing an answer, you decided to take the satchel with your shotgun that was hanging from one of the hooks, feeling some courage come back to you as you felt the cold heavy metal against your fingers.

You had lost track of what day it was: you could just remember the men had kept appearing inside your caves, and they always tried to harm or separate the both of you.  
Josh had gone out to try to lure them away from your lair, but you felt like something had gone horribly wrong;

You needed to check on him. It was stupid, and he was probably going to get mad at you, but you had the need to know wheter he was fine.  
You sniffed a little and rubbed your arms, trying to warm them up a little: your coat was shredded in many points and it didn't keep you much warm lately.  
You quietly opened the heavy door and circled around the pond of icy water: you had to walk sideways to fit through the narrow gaps between the rocks;  
When you finally managed to squeeze through you brushed your hands together and silently walked towards the caves; you didn't fear meeting a wendigo: they knew Josh was stronger of them all, and they weren't so foolish to try to invade his territory.

You kept walking around the caves, forcing yourself not to shout his name: even though you wanted to, you weren't safe in this part of them and you would have risked to attract unwanted attentions.  
You took the shotgun out of its makeshift holster and kept quietly pacing around the caves, avoiding the big rocks standing in your path.

Suddenly, you felt something slippery underneath your soles; as you crouched down you sniffed a pungent scent and when you touched it and tested its consistence between your fingers you recognised it immediately: it was blood, and even though you didn't see it, from the stink you could tell there was a lot of it.

You stood up again, more alarmed than ever: if it was all Josh's, he was surely going to die.  
You tried to follow the tracks around the caves: after wandering around for a while you still hadn't met a wendigo, which was a clear sign that Josh was near.  
You put your finger on the shotgun trigger, hoping you wouldn't have had to use it.  
You and Josh didn't kill men: as far as you knew, he had always succeded in restraining the wendigo and hadn't killed any human so far.

Suddenly, a noise brought you back to reality: it was like a munching sound, and groans could be heard echoing in the caves; you followed it and you ended up turning inside another slightly lighter tunnel, and that sight made you widen your eyes in shock: bodies were laying everywhere, large pools of blood covering the ground and staining your boots.  
At the end of it you could see two figures, and you could tell the noises were coming from them: you recognised one as being Josh, and the other was probably one of the men that had gone to investigate down in the caves.

Josh was leant on the man's stomach, slowly tearing flesh away and eating it while he was still alive; the man looked at you pleadingly as Josh kept digging his teeth inside his flesh and ripping it away.

You felt numbness spreading over your body as hot tears ran down your cheeks; you saw Josh sensing your presence and turning towards you with a feral gleam in his eyes: as a chorus of voices burst inside your head you raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger just in time to stop him from biting you.

\----------------------

4:32

You woke up with a startle in a pool of your own sweat; as those images flashed in front of your eyes one more time you tried to process it all and put together all the pieces;  
Something more akin to tears than sweat ran down your cheeks as you understood why Josh didn't want to talk about the caves.

When you heard a snarl coming from your left you heard a voice distinctly telling you to dodge: you let Josh jump on the other side of the room, without trying to stop him in anyway; now that you had remembered, you also knew that it was all useless.  
You overturned the bed on one side just before he jumped again on you: the force of his movement pushed you backwards;  
you crawled on the pavement as he climbed on the bed and growled again: you pushed yourself underneath the bed and you saw his feet leaving the floor as he jumped and landed on top of the mattress with a powerful thump.  
You dodged his claws as they pierced through the thin mattress in an attempt to impale you.  
You suddenly heard the door banging open and you could see some guards entering inside of the room; Josh's weight left the mattress and as the guards distracted him you crawled from bed to bed towards the exit.  
Bullets were being shot and your ears kept whistling with every new blow.

When you were close enough to the door you stood up and tried to run towards it but Josh was able to push away a couple of the guards and pin you with his claws to the wall: a horrible screech filled your ears and you took some time to realize it was yours; Josh's claws had pierced through your right shoulder, where a wet and warm pain was beginning to spread.

You looked at him with tears in your eyes as his other hand reached for your throat, the guards' screams and shouts filling your ears.  
"Stop it." He froze and looked at you, gently grazing his claws on the skin of your neck.

"Get away from me and leave me alone!" You shouted closing your eyes shut. "N-no..." you heard him murmur; when nothing happened and the screams stopped, you opened you eyes again: Josh was staring at you, his pupils no more dilated but a terrified look on his face.  
"Not again." He murmured as he looked at his fingers sunk inside your flesh.

He took his claws out of your shoulder: with all the adrenaline thumping in your veins you barely felt a stinging pain. He then stood up and backstepped towards the corner of the room, switching his gaze between you and the guards.

You kept looking at him while someone wrapped his arms around you, the shouts fading again in that high pitched noise as someone lifted you up and called for a medic.


	9. Resolve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi people I’m not dead I just didn't remember where I was going with all of this but now we're finishing this stuff, promise.

6:38

Painkillers. You had never welcomed them more gladly than now: muffled noises, vision blurred and heavy headaches were your best companions at the moment.  
Ginger had insisted you let someone take a look at your shoulder, but it wasn’t that bad: nothing important was wounded, though you couldn’t move your arm out of its sling since it still sent sharps pangs down your chest.  
It was more the mental scar that kept pulsing: Josh was that close to killing you the previous night. Now some things seemed clearer: the reason why he didn’t want to talk about the caves, the wendigo taking over… yet, the most important piece was still missing: how could you help him out of this situation? Because you wouldn’t have left him alone before and you surely weren’t backing off now.

Ginger pleaded you to rest a little bit, but you wouldn’t sleep after what happened. Actually, you thought you could have gone on for the rest of your life without sleeping.

He had left you wander inside one of the offices, since you had refused to go back to your old room: you had asked if you could have used a computer, technology sounding like the best way to keep yourself busy right now.  
You have been sitting in front of the desk for a while, tapping with the pads of your fingers on the smooth surface. You finally decide to see what internet has got for you today, but since you couldn’t use your right arm too much you decided to try with your left hand: even though it took you a while, you managed to power it on and use the mouse to get access to a browser.  
You waited for the usual site to load and typed on your email and password, your fingers felt funny while typing since you hadn’t done that in quite a long time.  
You grunt disapprovingly as you discover your mail had just been deactivated: you manage to reactivate it soon enough, and surprisingly some new messages were there, though you felt more relieved after seeing your endless stash of mails was still there. You used your mail box as a mean to store all the little adventures that had happened to you during those five years in town, keeping all the messages important to you. You ignored the new ones for the moment and delved back in the past, skimming through the stupid love letters Josh used to send you (perennially sassy), the endless chats with Hannah and Beth, and even the ones Mike had sent you when you had first met.  
Something resembling chagrin wells in your chest, the idea of being able to change how things had gone wasn’t making you any happier.

You and Mike didn’t mail each other often, since you had many other means of communicating with each other, but as you rolled the mouse rowel upwards again you saw a lot of messages from him: they were all dated after your disappearance.  
Now you understood who was the one who had to decided to message the dead girl.

You started reading the first one, unsure about what you would have found inside of it:

_(y/n)… I know you’re not going to reply. But I need someone to talk to and… You know I would always look for you whenever in need._

_Things aren’t going well. People don’t believe us, don’t believe… me… I’m afraid for what’s yet to come. Everyone in the group is turning their back on me, and I can’t really blame them. I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but…I guess it’s too late for that._  
_Everything feels so wrong, so broken without you, and Jess, Emily, Matt and…. I’m sorry. I wish this never happened.  
I didn’t kill just Emily that night. I killed you. Everyone on that mountain died because of me. I just wanted you to be safe. I know you’re still out there, somewhere – they said they would put together a research team. I hope they reach you in time._

You scrolled through the mails, reading bits of everything, until you reached another one that caught your attention.

_I miss you so much. If I had just taken you out of that mine, you would have been safe! Why did you run back?! We could have been together, safe! Why didn’t I stop you!  
You didn’t deserve this! I never wanted you dead!_

_I’m so sorry for what happened. I’m so sorry you’re not here anymore. I should have protected you, but you didn’t let me._

You searched up Mike’s name and a whole lot of newspaper articles appeared in front of you: the mail you had just read was sent just after the day of the first phases of the trial against him.  
People had to blame someone for what had happened, and the Washingtons were just too upside-down to take all the responsibilities on them. Someone from the group of survivors had to pay, and when the time came and Emily’s nibbled body was found with a clear shot wound in the eye, everyone pointed their fingers on Mike, disregarding the big ass wendigos roaming the place every goddamn night.

The trial was clearly a farce, people had judged him even before hearing his version of the story – which, to be honest, didn’t really make him look that much saner.

_I still miss you. I pray you have found peace, wherever you are now. I will always love you._

You just couldn’t stand there and wait for everything to go to waste.  
You needed to save Josh, and you were going to do that, one way or another.

You borrowed a pencil and a notebook from the desk, and started your researches: it wasn’t difficult finding out something about Jack’s family, but it surely was tougher to track some of its components down. They either weren’t on the internet or were dead, no in between.

After hours spent in front of that damn monitor, you had finally something in your hands: you underlined twice an old address you had managed to snatch from an ancient facebook page made apparently by Jack’s nephew, probably without him knowing.

“Definitely without him knowing.” You mutter to yourself as your mind drifts back at the few hours you had spent in the Old Man’s company. Damn, you missed him. You missed everyone.  
It was not new for you to feel extremely tired, but now that you realized you could have really done something about it, you felt some energies flood back into your body, knowing that you wouldn’t have let your only chance go to waste.

10:46

“Ginger?” he rolls his eyes and exhales deeply, but manages to make a little smile.  
“It’s Tyler.”  
“I know. But I like Ginger better.” You smiled back, and he looked at you with a very tired expression painted on his face. “What do you need, (y/n)?”  
“Can I make a phone call?”  
“Uhm… sure. I guess so.”  
He sounded still uncertain, so you press on his tender side. It was mean, but he was right to fear for your life. After all, if you managed to complete your plan there was a great chance Josh would have been the one trying to kill you.  
“It’s… my mum.” You blink a couple of times, fake tears welling up in your eyes. Tch, the only upside to all this is that you had no trouble finding something to cry about. “I really want to hear her voice. Please. Yesterday was just-“ you sob, and as you brush away a tear you feel his hand gently squeezing on your sane shoulder. “Hey. No need to cry. I’ll get you to the phone only if you stop with the tears.”

Damn, even without the voices you were too good at lying. It was almost scary, but until it helped you, it was surely a welcome fear.

He brought you outside of the room, towards another office: he handed you the receiver and you accepted it with a little smile, silently thanking him.  
You type the number on the dial and press the receiver to your ear with your forefinger: you kept counting the beeps it made, your heartbeat weirdly thumping faster than usual.

“Hello?”  
“Hey mum, how’s it going?”  
“Who’s this?”  
“Yeah, everything is alright here at the hospital.”  
Ginger smiles at you and you give him a thumbs-up until he decides to pace away from you.  
“(y/n)? What is this about?”  
“Sorry, I have everyone on my heels.”  
“Why?”  
“It’-it’s difficult to explain everything. Let me just say that things aren’t going according to any kind of plan I had in mind…”  
“Why am I not surprised?” you hear Sam puffing at the other end of the receiver “I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t be. It’s useless.”  
“Did you make any progress at all with Josh?”  
“No. Not really-“ you accidentally move your arm and your shoulder sends a little pang down your spine.  
“What happened?”  
“It doesn’t matter. Really, you definitely don’t want to know that.”  
“(y/n)-"  
“Sam. Please. I really can’t talk about it.” Your voice cracked at some point during that sentence, and you know she noticed it since you hear her exhaling deeply at the other end.  
“Sammy, I called because… I-I need to ask you a huge favor…”

15:24

He’s slouched against a bed, hands covering his ears. When he spots you on the other side of the looking glass, he shuffles to look towards another direction.  
“Josh.” You murmur, knowing all too well he can hear you very clearly even at this distance.  
“Go away.” He replies with a whine. You take in a deep breath and speak firmly, though you can feel your body trying to warn you about your lack of sleep.  
“You have no idea how tough it was convincing them to let me in here one more time. At least show some respect towards my attempts and hear me out.”  
“It’s too late for me. I don’t want to hurt you.”  
“You won’t. I promise.” You smile at him through the window, and his eyes linger in yours for a couple of seconds. “You’re lucky you are a good liar.” He stands up from the bed, but doesn’t even take a step towards you. “I will listen to your idea, but if it sounds stupid or dangerous, I won’t let you do it.”  
“What kind of plan isn’t stupid _and_ dangerous?” You smile back.  
He snorts disapprovingly and turns around to sit on another bed, when you call him quickly “Hey you promised to listen!”  
“Fine.” He sits on the bed, the springs screeching under his weight “I am listening.”

You look above your shoulder to make sure everyone is still outside of the room and explain him your plan in details: the more you delve into it the more he seems unconvinced by your words.

“It’s not the best plan in the world but it might work.” You shrug, but he flips off. “Might? _Might?!_ ” he roars as he stands up from the bed and strides towards the looking glass: he manages to regain some composure and whisper those words to you so not to attract unwanted attention from the doctors. “If you’re lucky I’ll just probably tear you to pieces. And if I won’t all the other wendigos will! This is completely insane!” “Have you got a better plan? I’m all ears, Josh!” you snap: you were tired and aching, you didn’t need this right now. “I’m doing the best I can to save you. I know it’s not much. But the thing that hurts more is that you still haven’t realized that if we don’t find a cure or something else happens to you, I might die all the same.”  
You exhale deeply and lower your gaze. A claw taps on the other side of the window.  
“If you’re sure this is the only way… I’m in.”  
You nod once, look him in the eyes.

“At dawn. Stay ready.”


	10. Road Trip

The sunrays were barely pocking just above the rim of the mountains when a bang was heard echoing through the hospital halls. All the doctors and attendants ran towards the source of the noise, fearing for the worst: it was your chance. You were glad Josh listened to you.

In the chaos of a potential wendigo attack, no one was left to pay attention to you: you sneak through the hallways barely noticed and make your way towards one of the storage rooms. It doesn’t take you long to take the pills you would have needed for the trip that you were hoping so hard wouldn’t have been your last.  
Before going out and proceeding with the real ‘escape’ part of the plan, you pick Jack’s wooden trinket out of your pocket: you stare at it as it lays in your hand for a couple of seconds before lining it with the other medical supplies and getting out of the room.

Maybe Ginger would have understood you were safe. Maybe without that trinket you would have really been.  
You just knew that with it Josh would have attacked you: if you wanted to survive long enough to have a chance to cure him you must leave it behind now.

You sneak outside of the storage room and silently make your way towards one of the red glass-covered buttons placed on the walls: you give it a firm blow with your elbow, smashing the thin protective glass on top of it, and press the button, the fire alarm setting off in the entire building.

A couple of stores above, Josh heard the sirens ringing and using his full force ran along the walls and exploited the momentum to crash through the walled door, jumping through concrete and armed security guards and doctors alike.  
He was fast to reach you downstairs, his hands and feet slipping on the smooth surface of the hospital floor as he sped up towards you and helped you up on his back, continuing to run down the hallways dodging patients and doctors.  
As you look to the side you spot Ginger in one of the halls, discarding what he was doing and getting out of the room he was in: as Josh kept running he quickly became a distant blurred dot above your shoulder, but as the two of you approached the widest window you could find around the hospital you heard the nurse call your name anyway.

“I’m sorry!” you yelled back as Josh stopped in front of the window and broke it with a simple punch before jumping out of it: you were yanked just above his shoulder by the fall and he was quick to grab your waist in his arms and keep you safe while he landed downstairs; it was just a fall from the first floor but it would have still hurt you bad if he hadn’t been there.  
As he heavily lands in the parking lot he softly places you on the ground, running at your side as you spotted and reached for Sam’s old rusted red pickup.  
The door was open and the keys were already in the panel: the two of you jump inside and close the doors behind you, the engine revving in motion as you drove out of the parking lot, your shoulder aching madly because of all that movement.

You drive for a good ten miles before feeling safe enough to stop. Everyone was probably too caught up in the chaos and with the firemen to quickly send police after you.  
You stop at a service station, paying attention not to attract unwanted attention as you park in the farthest corner.

Sam had left some clothes for the both of you: although her father was a big man, Josh barely managed to squeeze himself through a shirt and hoodie, who were still too short for him and stopped at the height of his navel. Even the pants stopped at the height of his ankles.

He sees you smirking at him as you change and snorts. “Damn wendigo thing.”  
You, on the other hand, had a body a little smaller than Sam’s muscular one: you sure couldn’t free climb anything that wasn’t a couch. Her clothes were a bit baggy but comfortable nonetheless.

You leave Josh in the car as you get inside the station to buy some food for the trip, hood carefully pulled up. You pay for everything and get back inside the car without incidents, Josh waiting for you with his arms folded in the passenger seat.  
You get back inside the car and the first thing you do is kissing him, hugging him closer to your body.  
“We did it.” You say, not fully believing it yourself.  
“God, we actually did it.”  
“You sure you know where we’re going?” he asks, and you nod. “I made some researches…” you turn the pickup on again. “I’m getting you to Jack’s family. They’ll know what to do.”

\------

After a whole day spent driving, you stopped at the side of the road: in the morning you would have reached Blackwood pines again, but for the moment you needed to stop and take a break.

“I-I can sleep outside-“ he starts, but you had understood this topic would have come out during the evening and sigh as you simply say his name.  
“Josh.” You caress the side of his face and he leans in. “Stay here.” His big green eyes stare into yours.  
“I could… hurt you…” he murmurs, but again it’s not true, he doesn’t know you’ve already taken care of it.  
“No.” you lick your lips and take in a deep breath: you didn’t know how he would have taken the news…

“I left the trinket at the hospital.”  
He’s visibly angry, but he isn’t saying a word. He looks around a couple of times, his eyes looking anywhere but at you, then he puffs deeply, his fingers squeezing on his knee.  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“You wouldn’t have agreed.” He stares at you for the longest of moments before his eyes trail down again.  
“…okay.”  
“You’re not mad?”  
“I am. But fighting is the last thing I wanna do right now.” He murmurs as he places his hand on your thigh and squeezes.

You smile and lean back against the seat, the car your only option to sleep for the night. It wouldn’t have been bad sleeping on the outside of the pickup, but it was still too cold to do that.  
“Damn, when this thing is over, we’ll just argue.” You murmur and hear Josh exhaling deeply. “I assure you that if we survive this, arguing will be at the bottom of my to-do list.”  
You keep chit-chatting a little, and just when you’re about to fall asleep Josh’s body snaps in a sitting position. “What’s wrong?” you ask, but he motions you to stay quiet.

A screech is heard in the distance.  
“Stay here.” he gets out of the car and quickly disappears in the shadows of the night.  
Those few moments feel like years: suddenly, your eyes catch movements in the shadows in front of you, then it’s all silent for a moment. You scream when something thumps on the roof of your car, but it quickly disappears again, as if dragged away by something else. You press yourself against the seat, your eyes barely pocking at the height of the window.  
When everything is quiet again, you wait and count to 100 before getting out of the pickup, torch in hand.

You call Josh several times, yelling his name as you see nothing through the thick darkness.  
You hear heavy footsteps approaching you, and as you spin around you see your beastly boyfriend approaching you: blood was dripping down a gash on his forehead, his mouth and clothes covered in the same red liquid.  
“Josh?” “It’s okay. They’re gone.” He wheezes.

The rest of the night was spent stopping Josh’s bleeding wound and discussing about the attack, the latter being the thing that puzzled the two of you the most: you weren’t that close to the mountain yet. The idea the wendigos were trying to dispose of their previous tyrant was plausible, but it didn’t really made sense, leaving little room to the other possible explanations.

At that moment, you were sure of just one thing: the wendigos would have made your already impossible task even more difficult.

\---------

The next day you had finally managed to reach the address you had found on the internet: you had left Josh behind as you went knocking on the door once, twice, but the answer was always the same. No one seems to be at home right now.

You stride back the way you came, close the car door shut behind you, your eyes feeling somehow watery although you’re trying not to cry. You inhale sharply and then puff, brushing your hands against your face. You don’t even look at Josh as you grab the wheel again and reach for the key. “It’s okay. We- we could try finding them. They must be somewhere after all, right?”  
A tear streams down your nose as a sob shakes your body.  
“Babe- don’t do that.” Another sob, louder this time, and when you cover your mouth to stop it it’s already too late and you’re crying again. You feel Josh’s bony hand caressing your back.  
“We tried, it’s fine.  
“No, it’s not fine! I can’t lose you again!”  
“You can’t save everyone, (y/n). You can’t save me.”

“Then what? What do we do?!” you’re too upset to notice the strange glint in his eyes as he looks out of the window.

Maybe if he left you now you would have been safe. You were stubborn, but you would have given up someday. He was sure of it.  
He looks down at his lap, lost in thought. He was unsure on what to do, too scared to let you go on with this but even more frightened by the idea of letting you alone with the voices again.  
His eyes settle on the instrument panel for a second, a vague idea forming in his mind as well.  
“We ran out of fuel.” He sighs, straightening in the seat. “Let’s go find a gas station and then we’ll figure something out.”

\------

He paces quietly around the station as you fill the tank again, the few people there too busy to notice his anomalous height and skinny arms.

There’s the open mountain in front of him. Nothing could really stop him if he started running now. It would feel strange running away, ignoring your cries, but it would also feel good, letting it take control. Letting everything become that blurred bliss again, one last time, before giving up consciousness for the rest of his life.

He inhales sharply, preparing to sprint in the forest at the other side of the road anytime now. He tries to muster enough courage, takes in another deep breath when somehow the scent of the air reminds him of something.  
You finish filling the tank and put the dispenser back on the rack, finally seeing Josh staring in the distance. “You okay?”  
“I think…” he seems to be sniffing again at the air but you can’t tell for sure since he was giving his back to you “God I can’t believe this curse crap is coming handy now…”  
“What?” he spins around quickly, pulls the door open “Jump in the car, I think I know where we’re headed to.”  
You do as he says, unsure about the immediate future but hopeful nonetheless.

As you hit the road again he gives you directions he apparently makes out of nowhere: at the umpteenth crossroad you stop the car and demand for an answer.  
He clenches his teeth together and exhales deeply through his nostrils: he wanted to explain it, but he didn’t really know how to do it.  
“I don’t know if it’s my wendigo or one that it ate before getting stuck with me, but… I remember they had a house on this side of the mountain. I-“ he stops and inhales sharply as he mistakes the word. “ _The wendigo_ saw it many times.”  
“They? You mean the Fiddlers?”  
He nods twice and you turn back towards the wheel, can’t help but smile. “Where to now, navigator?” you smirk and look sideways towards him: he smiles too, albeit there are way too many teeth in that grin at the moment.  
“Starboard, boatswain!” a poor attempt of his John Wayne voice replies.

You place your hand on his thigh and squeeze lightly, the turmoil there had been inside your chest now soothed; whilst there’s life, there’s hope.


	11. The Fiddlers

“It stops here.” He says, after one of the longest times he’s ever been silent since you had started driving again.  
“What?” you ask, keeping an eye on the road as you turn to look at him.  
“The- memories?” he replies uncertain “I don’t know, I don’t know where to go, (y/n).” he says shaking his head.  
You spot a bar at the side of the road and draw near the small parking lot, silence now settling inside the cab.  
“How near are we?”  
“Near enough, I think.” Your eyes skim the wooden building in front of you. “Near enough for people to know them?”  
“A crazy guy carrying a flamethrower and his family? I guess they wouldn’t pass unnoticed, yes.”  
The two of you get out of the car almost contemporary and make your way towards the wooden shack.  
As you enter in the bar, immediately the stench of stale air and freshly cleaned vomit hits your nose: you push through it and enter inside the small shack, immediately spotting the bartender and going towards him. There aren’t many people in there but the ones that aren’t drunk keep staring at the two of you as the wooden boards softly creak underneath your boots.

“How may I help you?” he bluntly asks, leaning at the opposite side of the counter.  
“We’re looking for information.” “And vodka.” Josh asks, cheekily smiling when you glare sideways at him.  
“I like how he’s talking.” The bartender says smiling, filling a glass and sliding it towards your boyfriend.  
“So, strangers? I have never seen you around here…” Josh gulps the whole drink down and puts the glass on the counter.  
“Yeah… well, we’re looking for some friends of ours.”  
“Who? I practically know everyone on this side of the valley.”  
“We are looking for the Fiddlers.”  
The man suddenly stands up from the counter and looks at the two of you in a very cold way. “What’s your business with ‘em?” a man sitting at a table nearby asks.  
“We have a… uh… infestation problem.”  
“Never quite understood the lot of them. Sneaky bastards…”  
“Do you know where to find them?” you ask, taking a step forward, but the man is quickly shaking his head.  
“No no no, you’re just getting into trouble if you’re looking for them, and I want none in it…”

Before you could even speak, Josh bolted in front of the table and slammed his hands on top of it.  
“Tell us where they are. Now.” The man had now become very very little in his chair and the other customers of the bar were about to draw their weapons. Josh looked around himself and coughed awkwardly, not realizing he had practically roared against the little man’s face.  
“Pretty please?”

\-------

“That… was amazing.” You say as you drive the rusty pickup back on the road, putting the address written on the back of your palm in the gps.  
“God it was not!” Josh murmurs, still pale after seeing so many guns _almost_ pointed at the two of you, shielding his face with his hand as he looked out of the window.  
“That was… awkward?” you try again.  
“Yeah… we can agree on that.” He snorts and smiles, looking at you. “I thought they were going to shoot us.”  
“They probably were.” You nod in agreement. “Maybe they’re more used to wendigos than what we thought.”  
\----------

After hours spent driving the smudged address is barely readable on your palm, but the few letters you can still read match with the road in front of you.  
“You think it’s here?”  
“Maybe at the end of the road?”  
A high pitched whistle echoed in the distance, and you two look for each other’s eyes.  
“I mean… we’re here. What other choice do we have?”  
He places his hand on top of yours, pushing your hand on the gear shift.

The road is isolated, no asphalt on the ground. The suspensions of the car creak at every hole in the ground, and you two cautiously approach in the middle of the road, fearing a pack of wild wendigos to appear from the middle of nowhere every moment now.

Finally, you see a little cottage at the end of this road. You park nearby it and get off the pickup, Josh following you suit.  
You tell him to stay a bit behind, because presenting yourself to a family of wendigo hunters with one at your side didn’t seem like a terrific idea.

You knock on the door thrice, waiting for the door to open.  
“Who is it?” you hear an old woman’s voice asking from the other side of the door. “Miss Fiddler? Hi, my name is (y/n), you might have heard of me from the news…” no answer is given to you. “I knew Jack. I was a friend of his.” _Kinda_.  
The door opens, but a shotgun is pointed right towards you.  
“Ma’am…” you murmur, raising instinctively your palms in defense and taking a step back. “Jack had no friends.”  
“Well… it’s true, but he saved me, and-“  
“Get out of my property!”  
“I need a cure!” you yell, closing your eyes, expecting a bullet to pierce through your skin any moments now. “I need to reverse a wendigo possession.”

Josh steps in front of you, and although you know bullets don’t pierce through wendigo skin, you’re still worried that’s a tad too close for safety.  
“Put the gun down, please.”  
As the old woman falters, sitting as she was in her wheelchair, you hear another voice coming from behind her.  
“What’s going on here?!”  
Icy eyes staring at you underneath an ebony bob: the new girl looks almost you age, though a deep scar mars the side of her lower face diagonally, from the center of her chin to her left cheekbone.

“Quick, girl! Grab some fire!”  
“No no no! Please! We don’t want to fight!” you exclaim, raising your palms and trying to step in front of Josh, although he wasn’t letting you.  
“We need your help-“ Josh pleads, and the girl’s eyes widen as she looks for your towering boyfriend’s face.

“Well, you sure know how to teach a wendigo some good tricks.” She murmurs as she stares fascinated at Josh’s tall figure, placing the rifle near her leg on the ground, still holding it from one of its ends.  
“Yeah, I do wonders with dogs too.” You joke.

“Gran, stop.” She says taking a couple of steps forward and lowering the old lady’s shotgun. “If they wanted us dead, they would have already tried.”  
“You got mad, girl? You see a damn wendigo-” “-I shoot a damn wendigo.” She completes. “Yes, I still remember the family motto. But they…” she stares for a moment at you “…well, they look different.”  
“I’m not letting them in my house!” she simply got behind her grandmother and took the handles of her wheelchair, sneakily lifting the shotgun from her lap. “Come in. I’ll keep her at bay.”

You and Josh look at each other for a second before getting in and closing the door behind you, following the two Fiddlers in the living room.  
“I’m Mandy, and this is Nan Dalia.” She says as you approach them, albeit she still has the rifle hanging from a sling around her shoulder. “And who are you?”  
You gulp and look up at Josh, feeling your nose extremely cold, your body just barely warming from the chilly air outside. “My name is (y/n) (y/s), and this is Josh.”  
“Josh? Like the Washington lad?”  
“See? I have an admirer! And you thought we wouldn’t have made new friends!” he says, nudging at you with his elbow.  
“Not an admirer… but yes, hunters must know what kind of fools decide to inhabit the mountain.” He soundly gulps. “Well… it still counts.”

She gestures at the couch. “Sit. We were just making some tea.”  
“Can I help you?” Mandy stops and turns around, raising one eyebrow, surprised to have someone she had almost shot helping her. “Sure.”

You follow her in the rustic kitchen, helping her with the mugs as she poured some hot water from the kettle and put some more to boil, putting tea bags in each mug.  
“You’re…” “young?” she smiles, almost sweetly. “You don’t need to be an old hag to go around killing wendigos.”  
“Are there many hunters around the mountain?”  
“Some.” She replies, slightly shrugging. “It’s not a very rewarding job. There are a lot of new recruits, though.”  
She finishes preparing the tea and puts everything on a tray, nudging you with her chin to follow her back in the living room, where you could hear insults being spat.

“Monster!”  
“Hag!”  
“Brat!”  
“Relic!”  
The two of you reprove the respective member of the family.

“Josh!” “Gran!”

“She started this!” Josh whines, but you simply hand him a mug of tea with a look that said ‘shut the fuck up and drink the goddamn thing’.

You all take a moment to relax and take a first sip, after almost having to shoot each other on the threshold.  
“So, you said you’re here for a cure, aren’t you?”  
“…yes.”  
“I’m afraid there’s little we can do for you.”  
“What?” Mandy looks at Josh, shaking her head.  
“At this advanced state, we can just hope to tame the effects. But the mountain claims all his creatures at some point in their lives.”

“You can do nothing?!” your free hand clenches in a fist “No! There must be something that can be done!”

“Well…” Mandy narrows her eyes, pondering carefully her idea. “There’s a ritual.”  
“Girl- that never worked.” Her grandmother murmured while taking another sip.  
“Not on regular wendigos. But look at this one: how many have you seen amiably conversing while sipping tea? I don’t think many.” She says, standing up from the sofa.  
“It’s dangerous!”  
“And it’s the right thing to do!” she blurts out in response.

“Letting an innocent die is like leaving one of those beasts roam free."  
“Now you’re talking just like your father!”  
“He saved these people! It would be disrespectful towards his soul to leave this boy to die!”  
“I’m not risking our lives for this scourge!”  
“Gran!” she calls her, not quite shouting, but near to do so. “They’re people. People we swore to protect.” She kneels in front of her, taking her hands in hers.  
“Gran- please.” Something cracks a little in her voice. “You know he’d want us to help.”  
Dalia simply nods, her mouth shut, too pain in her eyes to mutter words.

Mandy nods as well once in acknowledgment and stands up again, looking at the two of you. “Come. We have much to discuss.”

\------------

Over the next half hour she explained to you in detail what you were going to do: there were preparations to be made, but more than carving runes and praying to the old gods there wasn’t much to be done but hope, although she warned you that almost surely the wendigos would have attacked your group during the time you would have needed to perform the ritual.

“Are you sure it’s gonna work?” Josh asks anxiously once Mandy is finished, his hand reaching for yours under the table.  
“No. But the other cure is a bullet between your eyes.”  
You hear Josh gulp. “Okay. I guess.” 

“If you’re willing to risk, we can do it tonight. It doesn’t require many things, and most of them are already in the shack.” She says, looking out of the kitchen window towards a little barn standing a few feet from the house.

\---------

Josh went back in the living room and helped Nan Dalia with the table, while you and Mandy stayed in the kitchen, helping her cook the reindeer she had hunted and killed some days prior.  
You spent the lunch eating in silence, and then helped as you could around the house to prepare everything for the night.

You went to the shack near the house, where everything would have been performed and with some luck, in a few hours’ time Josh would have turned back to his old normal self.

Mandy was preparing the weapons when you approached her.  
“You two live here all alone?”  
“We’re used to it. I’ve grown up on these hills, and Gran doesn’t want to go back to the city, keeps saying she’ll die happy with less wendigos around.”  
A moment of silence settled between you two before you spoke again.  
“I’m sorry about your dad.”  
“Yeah. Jack was an idiot at times, but… he knew how to do his job.”  
“Weren’t you on good terms?”  
“With him? No. Never.” She almost smirked, looking at a distant point in the void. “He has always treated me like a cadet. Made mum practically run away. The only time he showed interest in me was when I killed something.”  
She looked at some point afar, as if delving through a long forgotten memory. “We barely bore each other lately. He looked after the other side of the mountain, we stayed on this side. That was the deal.”

You knew how having a misfit for father was. You were somehow glad yours hadn’t forced you to take on the family tradition of monster-slayer.

“I… Thank you for what you’re doing.” You murmur.  
“Don’t thank me.” She clunked the rifle close “Protecting people from wendigos is the family business.” She murmured with a smile full of regret.


	12. Witchcraft

You had been preparing weapons for the remaining of the evening, and you never stopped thinking about what would have happened during the following night. Your imagination run wild, and there seemingly wasn’t any means to stop it but focusing on cleaning the weapons and counting the rounds of bullets.  
You had been waiting for this day for so long… but you knew all too well there was no warranty on the success of the ritual. It was a ‘here goes nothing’ kind of situation, and that surely didn’t make you feel any better.

Mandy reunites with you and Josh just before entering the shed, making sure you’re mentally prepared to face anything that might happen.  
“This night will be horrible. We’ll be swarmed by wendigos attracted from the releasing of the curse. Are you ready to face that?”  
You gulp soundly as you listen to her. “I-I’ll be fine.”  
“Don’t worry Man: she’s one of the tough ones.” Josh smiles as he squeezes your hand in his one last time, before walking inside the building and towards the table at the center of the room.

You listen carefully as Mandy explains how the shack is actually fortified with metal plates running along the walls, and where and how the wendigos could have got through.  
As soon as she gives you a shotgun, you grasp it tightly in your hands, feeling a bit reassured.

You watch as the sun sets just on the rim of the horizon before Mandy closes the doors shut, chaining them and barricading inside as much as she’s able to.  
You don’t know if you’re ready to face another nightmare this soon, you had only bad memories about the lodge… yet you know that this is the only chance you have to save Josh.  
When Dalia binds him to the table with chains, you know there’s no coming back.

“I’ll need to place holy symbols on your body…”  
“Cool.” As soon as she raises a knife, he wiggles in his chains. “Oh, you meant-“ Dalia stares at him impassible, not understanding the problem.

“I didn’t think I would have had to explain this, but” he raises the tone of his voice, panicked “‘place’ is not a synonym for ‘butcher’!”  
“You’re a wendigo.” She replies, as if it was obvious he wouldn’t have felt pain.  
“It still hurts!” he turns towards you. “She’s gonna enjoy this too much, can’t Mandy do this?” you simply squeeze his arm reassuringly and apologetically smile. “C’mon, big guy. You can do this.”  
“Hm… fine…”  
Dalia lets the knife heat up hovering it just above a nearby fire she had lit during the evening, moving it away just when the flame turns red. She carves the runes on Josh’s body very precisely and without breaking her cold demeanor, stopping just to heat the blade again and pierce through his thick wendigo skin.

“Are you holding up?”  
Eyes squeezed shut, he speaks through gritted teeth. “I’m good I’m good I’m good…” he murmurs more to himself than to you.

Dalia walks away once she’s done, sitting on a chair next to the wall opposite to the door, grabbing a hunting rifle and preparing to wait.

Mandy walks next to you and Josh: as soon as he saw her, he smiled.  
“Hey, my Man…” She gives him an icy look “Stop that.”  
She exhales deeply as she opens what looked like a small, ancient book: you couldn’t read most of the words that were written on it, but that solely meant that you really needed the Fiddlers’ help to solve this wendigo problem. “Go, (y/n).” she raises her eyes from the pages to look at you. “I’ll take care of him. Make sure nothing gets inside.” You nervously nod and squeeze Josh’s hand one last time before walking away.  
You overhear her as you’re moving towards the corner next to the door. “Are you ready?” Josh gives an uncertain nod in response and Mandy somehow knows it’s as good as it gets.

She starts reading the pages, almost chanting complicated and ancient words, hoping with all herself it would have worked.  
Just now you noticed the small handmade flamethrower laying next to the crates just behind her.  
If things went sour, there was no coming back for Josh.

Hours passed by without anything seemingly changing: Mandy kept reading the prayers, stopping to burn some feathers and other small trinkets in the fire from time to time, Josh groaning in pain and screaming during certain rhymes, but you know it’s for his own good, or at least that’s what you’ve been telling yourself for the past hours.

You feel tremendously tired, your shoulder still faintly aching where he had pierced you with his claws days prior: it hadn’t still healed, and given you hadn’t stopped to check it out in the past days it was probably going to cause you pain for a while.  
You feel the lack of sleep catching up with you, fighting every moment to keep your eyes open.

Suddenly, a loud bang on the exterior of the wall shakes you, and you can’t help but stand up, checking that every entrance is still closed.  
You glance at Dalia on the other side of the shack: her impassible demeanor hadn’t broken, but you could tell she was concerned about the whole situation.

_It’s begun._

The bang was followed by many others, reverberating through the whole shed. Mandy never stopped reciting the chants, ignoring everything that was surrounding her, hoping she would have been done before the wendigos broke inside.

The first that manages to break through a window is sent staggering backwards by your shotgun: you push crates and anything you can find against the window, barricading it as much as you can.  
Dalia helps you deal with them by shooting from afar, making sure everything around the shack was still safe enough to perform the ritual.

All the noises cease after a while, no wendigo inside and seemingly outside, from what you can hear. You don’t have the time to take a breath of relief when another single bang hits against the door, much louder than any of the previous ones.  
You stare at the double doors in horror as it happens again, the shack vibrating and dust falling from the ceiling. Even Mandy stops to look at it, readying herself for the worst.  
Another one, and the doors begin to deform and bend under the blow.  
With a last one, the four wendigos break inside the room, shrieking and screeching in anticipation of their meal.

You keep shooting at them, trying so hard not to get eaten. Mandy and Dalia manage to drive a couple of them away, and frankly they were handling themselves very well so far.  
Something jumps into your back, toppling you on the ground. You hear a feral snarl just on the back of your head before the wendigo drags you away. Your fingers dig in the wooden boards on the ground, but you can’t find any handhold. You scream again as he drags you out of the shack, hearing just shoots and Mandy screaming your name.

You feel its teeth chomping in your leg, a great chunk of meat detaching from your body. You scream in pain, your vision almost blurring as you try to remain conscious.  
The wendigo swallows your flesh and snarls at you: just when he’s about to bite you again, another wendigo jumps against him and pushes him away from you.  
Your hand feebly extends towards them as you watch them fight. “J-josh…” you don’t know how he had managed to free himself, but you’re glad he’s here to save you.

Mandy’s face appears above of you, her fingers already pressed against your neck to check whether you are still alive.  
“(y/n)?! (y/n)!! Stay awake!”  
She disappears for a moment from your view and you feel something tightening around your thigh: you make the effort of pushing your head a little upwards, your neck madly protesting in the new position; Mandy was tightening her belt around your leg and squeezing it close.

You barely manage to see the other wendigos retreating from the shack, disappearing in the woods in the distance.  
“(y/n)!” Another voice. Josh’s this time.  
He’s about to reach for you, but Mandy stops him. “We must continue.”  
“She’s gonna die!”  
“We either finish this now or start over again. We’ve resisted their attack, they’ll need hours to reassemble.”  
“She doesn’t have hours! We need to drive her to a hospital--” “Josh.” He stops talking when he hears you voice. He kneels next to you, blood dripping down the wounds and cuts around his torso.  
“I’m fine. I can hold on for some more hours.”  
“Babe-“  
“Don’t I have a say in this?”  
His hand sweetly combs your hair back. His voice is broken when he speaks again “I love you. Please don’t die.”

You follow him as Mandy pulls your arm around her shoulders and lifts you back on your feet, dragging you back inside the shed.

Dalia shakily walks towards the two of you and points Mandy towards a corner where she could safely let you on the ground.  
“Josh… I wanna see…” You hear someone shushing you and an old, calloused and surprisingly warm hand covers your forehead.  
“Sshh… he’s fine. Rest easy, child…”

You hear Mandy binding him again, continuing her chanting, her words echoing in the small shed, along with Josh’s screams.

There were screeches, some shouts from time to time, but Dalia never moved from beside you. Your skin felt like it was on fire, your clothes completely drenched in sweat, your wounded leg almost burning because of the pain.  
The great light on the ceiling of the shed is one of the few things that you can see, but as soon as you open your eyes every time either Dalia closes them or you fall back asleep so fast she doesn’t even have the time to notice.

The moments of consciousness are brief and blurred: you see sometimes the shed, sometimes the cave where Hanna and Beth fell; sometimes Mandy, sometimes Jack. Sometimes the wendigos, and sometimes your dearest Josh.  
And as the screeches of the wendigos formed a chorus with the police sirens, you knew that dawn’s sweet warm rays were washing over your face and that the night was finally over.


	13. Snowfall

Sirens and lights had soon faded in a tender comfortable darkness, so sweet and warm you weren’t quite sure you wanted to wake up from it just yet.  
In your dazed state you still perceive the flowing of time, swiftly slipping away like water between your fingers.

You feel a headache pulsing at the sides of your head as you crack your eyes open: the white of the room ceiling is the first thing that comes into focus, followed shortly after by the rest of the minimalistic furniture. You take in a first deep breath, plastic and medicine filling your nostrils as you slowly pull yourself into consciousness again. Your eyes skim the room, adjusting to the new light and white environment.  
You take in another deep breath as you look around yourself, recognizing the dulling sensation of morphine running in your veins. You simply focus on your breathing as you fight back the urge to close your eyes, slowly convincing yourself to move.

Your hand is the first to move, reaching for the plastic mask placed on your face and shakily lifting it up: you keep focusing on your breathing, feeling as if that was the only way to keep your lungs from falling apart.  
You take a while to pin your elbows and hands on the mattress, lifting yourself in a sitting position.  
You cup your face with your hands and lightly brush your eyes, the regular beeps of the machines surrounding you filling the silence.   
You take in deep breaths as you slowly drag your palms away from your face, slowly skimming on the machines and furniture surrounding you, somehow recognizing some of them from your previous hospitalizations.  
As your eyes trail down the contour of your body, you see the blanket flapping abruptly down at the height of your calf, just where the wendigo had bit you. Your hand shakily reaches for the blanket wrapped around your sides, grabbing it and peeling it off your body, uncovering what remained of your leg.

You can’t help but gasp, hot tears welling up in your eyes as you rest back against the headboard, eyes staring at the stump and then trailing towards ceiling, tears falling down your cheeks as you close your eyelids.  
From half your calf down, there wasn’t anything anymore. Flesh and bone had been cut away; bandages cover entirely what remains of your leg.  
Your foot had been removed, now just a strange tingling sensation remained where flesh once was.

You rest back on the pillows until you stop crying, the fuzzy drugs in your veins calming you down as you slowly come to accept the situation. The sobs quietly fade into whims and then nothing remains but a strange feeling of sadness welling up in your chest.

Josh. Your mind finally catches up with the situation, and you shake yourself out of your dizziness.  
You need to find Josh, discover whatever happened to him after you had passed out.

Your hand reaches for the cold metal handrail at the side of your bed, grabbing it tightly: with your drugged cumbersome movements, it takes you a while to actually get towards the edge of the bed; when you get there, you make your way out of the bed sheets and hang your legs from it.  
A pair of crutches are leaning against the wall next to your bed: your hand shakily reaches for them and you grab them tightly, testing your grip on them a couple of times before trying to stand up;  
Your sane leg wobbles underneath your weight, but you take in deep breaths and focus on moving forward, limping towards the door of your room.

You pick a direction and start moving down the corridor, the spare nurses walking around the facility barely notice you, until a voice gets nearer and nearer to you.  
“Miss? Miss! What are you doing out of your bed?!”  
“I’m fine.” You emotionlessly reply, in hope the umpteenth paramedic you had come to meet during these past few weeks would you leave you be.  
“You can’t walk out of your room like this!”  
You take in a deep breath and hold it for half a second before exhaling it. “Watch me.”  
“Please, I need to ask you-“  
“I just survived a near death experience. I’m crippled. I’m tired.” Her eyes meet yours and something shifts in her gaze ”I just want to see my boyfriend.”

You see her opening her mouth to reply, but then closing it again. She looks you up and down before moving down the corridor, just a few paces away from you, grabbing something just around the corner and unfolding it, revealing a small collapsible wheelchair.  
“I’ll show you to his room.” You look at her again before shifting your gaze towards the chair, sitting then on it and grabbing the crutches tighter to your chest.

You can’t recognize the place you’ve been hospitalized in, it doesn’t actually tell you anything about it. You’re pretty sure you’ve never been in this place, and as you keep thinking about it, you realize the chair has stopped in front of a door; the nurse knocks on it three times before opening it.

You see someone’s body laying on the mattress, and as soon as you recognize his smiling face through the bandages, you feel the sadness in your chest being quickly replaced by warm, fuzzy joy.  
You smile at him as his eyes lock on yours. “Babe?”

“Hi.” It’s all you manage to mutter, but it seems to be enough for him.  
The nurse pushes your wheelchair next to his bed and then walks out of the door, closing it behind her.   
His chest is completely covered in bandages, his nails had started falling out and he probably is even more drugged than you are; but he was safe, and all thanks to you.  
Your hands find his and you stay like that for some time, squeezing and feeling each other breathing, no more monsters talking from behind your eyes.

With some team effort, you manage to stand from your wheelchair and nuzzle in the bed next to him.  
You place your head on the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath as you close your eyes again.  
“I’m so tired.”  
“Don’t tell me.” He murmurs back, smiling.

You feel his hand caressing the back of your head, sighing softly as you wrap your arm around his form.  
“It’s been days… I think…” He looks down towards you. “I thought I wouldn’t have seen you again.”  
“Pft, you’re such a pessimist…” You smirk, closing your eyes again and resting your head on his chest.

As you feel yourself beginning to drift in a warm nightmareless sleep, you’re shaken awake by two small quick knocks on your chamber door; a man in an elegant suit is staring at you and Josh: he didn’t look displeased, but the detached glare he’s giving both of you clearly meant business.

“Mister Washington and Miss (y/s)?” As dizzy as you’re feeling, you barely manage a nod. Josh’ lisp is still heavy, but he too manages to mumble a _yesh_ that seems to please the newly arrived man.  
“I represent the community of Blackwood and its territories. I would need you to sign-“ in that moment, he slightly hunches towards his bag and takes out two thin blocks of printed paper sheets.

“-these.”  
The documents are handed to you and you stare at them suspiciously before grabbing them from his hand and placing them on your lap.

Josh takes one of the two blocks of paper and skims through to, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he tries to read through the pages.   
You don’t even bother trying, immediately asking “What are these?”  
The man blinks as he stares back at you, slightly raising his eyebrows “Read.”

“What are these?” you ask again, slower, raising your gaze this time. “I just lost a leg. I’m so drugged I’m practically tripping. And even if I wasn’t, I would understand shit.”  
He exhales deeply, adjusting his glasses on his nose.  
“With this document you declare yourself oblivious of anything that happened in the woods near the facility of the Fiddlers family.”  
Josh seems more angered than intimidated. “How could we ever forget that?”   
You shake your head, exhaling deeply. “People have to know.”

“People _don’t_ have to know. That’s exactly why I’m here.”  
“They can’t keep living like this! They have to know there are things in the mountain—“  
The lawyer skims the two of you again as he adjusts his glasses once more.  
“If you don’t sign those, there are going to be investigations…” you gulp at the idea of another endless battle opening in front of you.  
“You, and all your friends, will be back in the middle of another scandal, again. And all the ones involved with you, they are going to get through it all alongside you.”

“The Fiddlers-“ you gasp. “You can’t do this to them!”  
He keeps on talking, ignoring you.  
“They haven’t been charged of anything. Yet.”  
“But it wasn’t them doing this to us! You must know it. The wendigos-“  
“We don’t use that word here. Or anywhere else, for the matter.”  
Two paper sheets with little, thick text are placed once more in front of you. Signing lines at the bottom of each of them.  
“What will happen if we sign these?” Josh grunts, and your eyes snap back to the lawyer in front of you.  
“It’s quite simple, actually. You sign, you forget about everything that’s happened, and you’re free.”  
“What if we don’t?” There’s a moment of calculated hesitation before the man speaks again.  
“Blackwood will have to charge you for arson and the Fiddlers for attempted murder.”

“They didn’t! You know it-“  
Your hand snaps on Josh’s and you look for his gaze: you didn’t want them to go to prison. They are probably the only ones still fighting against the wendigos on the mountain. And a fake trial shortly followed by a court sentence for arson doesn’t appeal to you either.  
“Josh.” “I will call my parents- they’ll get us lawyers, we can-“ “ _Josh._ ”He shifts his gaze towards you, albeit begrudgingly.  
“We have to-“ “Yeah. Yeah-” He takes in a deep breath. “I know.” He holds you closer to himself for a moment before moving away the arm wrapped around your back and holding his hand out to the lawyer.  
“Just give me the goddamn pen.”  
With a few scribbles and a couple of elegant curves, your names are both signed on the thickly-written paper. You exhale deeply, not wanting to forget but also too tired to go on with this now pointless crusade.

“Excellent.” He takes the time to get the papers back and stash them in his leather bag, standing then straight to speak to you.  
“Mister Washington, Miss (y/s),” he pauses to look at the two of you, pleased. “Thank you for your time.”  
He nods his head and turns around, getting out of the door and letting it close behind himself.

You sink back inside the bed sheets with a sigh, fighting back the need for sleep that was pulling your lids down.  
Josh’s fingers travel to your hair, combing them lightly with his fingertips. “It’s all gone. Everything will be alright, I promise.” You bitterly smile at his statement, slowly opening your eyelids. “I would tell you not to make promises you can’t keep, but I’m too glad it’s done-“

The three sweetest words of the alphabet. “It’s finally over.”

Your body relaxes against his and all the thought that had been running in your mind shift away.  
No matter how much you had traveled, endured; no matter how long this had felt, or how difficult, now you know. Only when you are in his arms you can truly feel at home. “I love you.”  
“Love you too.” He murmurs as his eyes completely close again.

With a sigh, you fall asleep against his chest, his deep, peaceful heartbeat the only thing you can hear as snow gracefully falls outside of the window.


End file.
